The  Story  of  the 
Cigarette 


By 
WILLIAM  W.  YOUNG 


ILLUSTRATED 


New  York  and  London 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

iax6 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 

Although  there  is  no  end  to  the  making  of 
many  books,  there  has  never  been,  until  now,  a 
beginning  to  the  making  of  one  authoritative 
book  about  the  cigarette.  Legions  of  indus- 
trial volumes  have  been  written  and  published, 
and  more  and  more  are  being  written  and  pub- 
lished every  year.  From  the  digging  of  ore 
below  the  earth  to  the  flying  of  airships  above 
it,  there  is  scarcely  any  business  or  trade  that 
has  not  inspired  its  scores  of  codexes,  manuals 
and  tomes,  each  treating  its  especial  subject 
from  one  of  a  score  of  angles. 

Books  about  tobacco  in  general  are,  more- 
over, sufficiently  numerous  and  weighty;  so 
are  books  about  cigars  and  books  about  pipes. 
But,  on  the  specific  subject  of  the  cigarette,  no 
serious  and  informative  work  has  been  com- 
piled. Even  magazine  articles  and  pamphlets 
have  been  few,  and  nearly  all  of  these  are 
biased — the  controversial  utterances  of  the 
agents  or  zealots  of  a  propaganda. 

This  is  the  more  strange  when  one  considers 
the  scope  of  the  cigarette  industry  and  the 
arguments  that  it  has  aroused.  There  is  no 
state  in  the  Union  in  which  the  cigarette  has 
not  been  the  object  of  legislation;  there  is  no 
village  so  small  but  the  cigarette  has  entered 
the  lists  of  its  local  controversies. 

For  nearly  half  a  century  the  manufacture  of 
cigarettes  has  been  one  of  the  leading  indus- 
tries of  the  United  States.  By  leaps  of  millions, 

f  > 
o 


PREFACE 

even  billions,  it  has  grown  until,  now,  our  coun- 
try produces  more  than  16,000,000,000  ciga- 
rettes every  year.  To  make  these  there  is 
employed  labor,  skilled  and  unskilled,  to  an 
extent  that  not  many  other  businesses  equal. 
Thus  the  cigarette  provides  a  living  for  a  vast 
number  of  our  people  and  is  consumed  by  the 
majority  of  our  male  citizens.  Yet  it  will  be  in 
vain  that  you  search  publishers'  catalogues 
and  libraries  for  any  reference  book  about  it. 

To"  supply  this  need  the  present  work  was 
undertaken,  and  because  of  the  need  the  task 
was  not  small.  I  am  grateful  for  every  assist- 
ance rendered.  I  acknowledge  the  courtesy  of 
the  American  Tobacco  Company  for  permit- 
ting me  to  go  freely  through  its  warehouses 
and  factories,  and  I  thank  its  experts  on 
domestic  and  Turkish  tobaccos  for  the  data 
they  supplied. 

It  has  been  my  endeavor  to  secure  and  pre- 
sent the  facts  concerning  the  history  and  the 
remarkable  development  of  this  industry.  It 
has  been  my  aim  to  tell  how,  from  the  ground 
where  the  tobacco  is  grown  to  the  counter  over 
which  the  cigarette  is  sold,  this  article  of  com- 
merce and  comfort  comes  into  being  and 
reaches  the  consumer.  And,  finally,  it  has  been 
my  intention  to  find  the  truth,  to  correct  mis- 
statements  and  to  place  before  the  public  the 
unbiased  verity — good,  bad  or  indifferent — 
about  the  question  in  hand. 

W.W.  Y. 


Contents 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS 

Page 

First  Account  of  the  Cigarette — When  Tobacco  Was 
Legal  Tender—Beginning  of  Cigarette's  Popularity — 
First  Cigarette  Machines — Test  of  Cigar  and  Ciga- 
rette— Influence  of  Soil  and  Climate — Preparing  Soil 
and  Transplanting— Plant  Pests  and  Cultivation 1 

CHAPTER  II 

HARVESTING  AND  CURING 

Tobacco  Ripened  as  Nature  Intended — Curing  "Bright" 
Tobacco  an  Agricultural  Fine  Art — Curing  by  the  Flue 
Method — Stripping  and  Sorting  the  Leaves — From 
Farmer'to  Auction  Warehouse , . 25 

CHAPTER  III 

TOBACCO  STORAGE  AND  BLENDING 

Four  or  Five  Years'  Labor  in  Each  Cigarette — Business 
Makes  South  Prosperous — Prizing  into  Hogsheads  for 
Storage— Mellowed  by  Two  "Sweats"  Each  Year- 
Blending  of  Crops  Makes  Uniform  Quality — Impor- 
tance of  Large  Capital  in  Business 40 

CHAPTER  IV 

PREPARING  FOR  MANUFACTURE 

First  Process  in  a  Cigarette  Factory— Where  Turkish  To- 
bacco Comes  From — Why  Best  Turkish  Cigarettes  are 
Made  in  America — Overcoming  Dishonest  Native  Pack- 
ing— Blending — Turks  and  Greeks  Employed  in  Fac- 
tories .  54 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  V 

MAKING  THE  CIGARETTE 

Page 

Speed  with  Which  Cigarettes  Are  Made — Printing  the 
Names — Shaping  and  Pasting— A  "Cigarette-Girl"  for 
Thirty-seven  Years — Factories  Are  Clean  and  Health- 
ful— How  Cork  Tips  Are  Made — Putting  on  the  Cork 
Tips— Report  by  a  Pure  Food  Expert. . ... ... ... .,. . . 69 

CHAPTER  VI 
PACKAGES  AND  PACKING 

Evolution  of  the  Sealed  Package — Machine  Prints  25,000 
Bands  per  Hour — Ingenious  Cup-Forming  Devices—- 
Wrapping Cigarettes  in  Foil — Picture  Inserts — Care 
Taken  to  Protect  Products — Pioheers  in  Sanitary  Pack- 
age Goods  System 87 

CHAPTER  VII 
CIGARETTE  PAPER 

Purity  of  Ingredients  of  Cigarette  Paper — Making  Ciga- 
rette Paper  a  Real  Art— Absolute  Cleanliness  Is  a  Ne- 
cessity   104 

CHAPTER  VIII 
GROWTH  OF  THE  INDUSTRY 

Remarkable  Development,  Reaching  an  Annual  Produc- 
tion of  Over  16,000,000,000  Cigarettes — Nearly  500%  In- 
crease in  Last  Fifteen  Years— Growth  Due  to  Quality 
of  Tobacco  Used— Statistics  on  the  Volume  of  Business.  114 

CHAPTER  IX 
CHEMISTRY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

What  Noted  Scientists  Find— Convincing  Report  Made  by 
Ohio  fchemist— London  "Lancet's"  Analysis — Reports 
of  Other  Reputable  Chemists 122 

vi 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  X 

SCIENTIFIC  VIEWS  ON  SMOKE 

Page 

Errors  of  Medical  and  Popular  Opinion — Scientific  Re- 
search in  Europe — How  Much  Nicotine  Does  Science 
Find? — Experiments  on  Human  Beings — Doesi  Smoking 
Cause  111  Health?— Judging  the  Well  by  th«  Hi— Faulty 
Iodine  Method  of  Analysis 141 


CHAPTER  XI 
POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO 

/ 

"Differences  of  Taste  a  Source  of  Argument — The  Case  of 
the  More  Extreme  Critics — Beef-Tea  as  a,  Mode  of  Ine- 
briety—An Expert  Witness  Testifies — The  Carbon 
Monoxide  Myth — The  Superstition  about  Furfural — 
Coltsfoot  as  a  Substitute  for  Tobacco. .  .  159 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  VOICE  AND  SMOKING 

Investigation  Reveals  No  Added  Ingredients  in  Ciga- 
rette Tobacco — Nearly  All  Great  Singers  Smoke  Ciga- 
rettes— Science  Favors  the  Cigarette  above  Other 
Forms  of  Using  Tobacco — The  "Tobacco  Heart"  Fal- 
lacy    182 


CHAPTER.  XIII 
THE  QUESTION  OF  EXCESS 

A  Comparison  of  Excesses  of  Various  Kinds — Moderate 
Use  of  Tobacco  Not  Injurious — Intemperate  Eating, 
Drinking,  Working — More  Mistakes  about  Nicotine. .  200 

vii 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR 

Tobacco  Proved  to  Be  a  Necessity  to  Armies  in  the  Field 
— Revelations  by  Motion  Pictures — Solace  for  Men  on 
Destroyer  Fleets — Bond  between  King  and  Soldier — 
Appeals  of  Men  on  Firing  Lines  Lavishly  Met— Gov- 
ernments Pass  Gifts  of  Cigarettes  Duty  Free— Test  of 
Valor  in  Mexican  Battle — Favorite  Smoke  in  Army  and 
Navy — Comfort  for  Titanic  Victims 213 

CHAPTER  XV. 
THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH 

Inborn  Desire  in  Every  Male  Human  Being  to  Smoke 
Something— The  Matter  of  Inhaling  Smoke — One  Good 
Reason  Why  Boys  Should  Not  Smoke — Mistake  to 
Link  Crime  with  Cigarettes 234 

CHAPTER  XVI 
SMOKING  AND  EFFICIENCY 

Stock  Statements  of  the  Physiologies  Are  Mere  Generali- 
ties— Noted  Athletes  Cigarette  Smokers — At  Odds  in 
Baseball  Circles — More  Smokers  Than  Non-Smokers 
Win  Contests — The  Cigarette  and  Mental  Efficiency- 
Men  of  Master  Minds  Users  of  Tobacco 254 

CHAPTER  XVII 
CIGARETTE  LEGISLATION 

Opinion  of  a  Cigarette  Manufacturer — Question  of  Age 
Limit — States  Changing  "Anti"  to  Minor  Laws — The 
Power  of  Popular  Prejudice 270 


viii 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Facing  Page 

Facsimile  of  Letter  Written  by  George  Washington 

When  He  Was  a  Tobacco  Planter  and  Exporter..  10 
Superior  Tobacco  Plants  That  Have  Been  Selected  for 

Seeds 16 

A  Field  of  "Bright"  Virginia  Tobacco 26 

Automatic  Machine  for  Redrying  Domestic  Tobacco..  44 

Method  of  "Prizing"  Domestic  Tobacco , 46 

Types  of  Warehouses^  for  the  Storing  and  Aging  of 

Domestic  Tobacco   48 

A  Field  of  Tobacco  in  Turkey 56 

Comparison  of  Turkish  Cigarette  Tobacco  Leaves  with 

a  Domestic  Leaf 60 

Tobacco  Cutting  Machines  66 

A  Row  of  Cigarette  Making  Machines 70 

Front  View  of  a  Standard  Cigarette  Making  Machine. .  72 

Printing  Names  on  Cigarette  Papers 74 

Scale  Drawing  of  the  Part  of  the  Machine  That  Forms 

the  Cigarette 76 

The  Cork  Tipping  Department 84 

Packing  More  Expensive  Grades  of  Oval  Turkish  Ciga- 
rettes by  Hand 92 

•Forming  the  "Cups"  in  Which  the  Twenty-in-a-Package 

Cigarettes  Are  Packed 94 

Filling  Twenty-Cigarettesrin-a-Package  "Cups" 96 

Putting  Bands  on  and  Packing  Boxes  of  Cigarettes  into 

Cartons  98 

High  Grade  Turkish  Tobacco  in  a  Native  "Magazine"  120 

Solace  for  Wounded  Soldiers 216 

Cigarettes  of  Royalty  and  the  Ranks 218 

Duca  dcgli  Abruzzi  and  Brigadier-General  Goethals  230 

Rulers  Who  Enjoy  Their  Cigarettes 266 


The  Story  of  the  Cigarette 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS 

First  Account  of  the  Cigarette — (When  Tobacco  Was  Legal 

Tender — Beginning    of    Cigarette's    Popularity — First 

Cigarette  Machines — Test  of  Cigar  and  Cigarette — 

Influence  of  Soil  and  Climate — Preparing 

Soil  and  Transplanting— Plant  Pests 

and  Cultivation. 

THE  word  "cigarette"  is,  of  course,  of 
French  origin.  It  is  the  diminutive  of 
"cigar,"  which,  in  turn,  is  derived  from 
the  Spanish  cigarro,  itself  a  diminutive, 
meaning  a  little  garden.  When  tobacco  was 
first  introduced  into  Spain  it  was  considered — 
and,  indeed,  as  far  as  Europe  went,  it  really 
was — a  very  rare  and  valuable  plant,  and  the 
Spanish  dons  cultivated  it  in  the  gardens  of 
their  homes.  In  those  days,  the  grandee  took 
great  pride  in  offering  his  guests  tobacco 
wrapped  in  the  form  of  cigars,  and  in  telling 
the  recipients  that  these  gifts  were  made 
from  plants  raised  on  his  own  land. 

"Es  de  mi  cigarral"  he  would  say:  "It  is 
from  my  garden." 

Foreign  visitors  to  Spain  heard  this  phrase 
frequently  and,  returning  to  their  homes,  re- 
peated it  in  various  parts  of  the  world.  There, 
persons  unacquainted  with  Spanish  are  sup- 
posed to  have  taken  up  the  words  and  short- 
ened them  to  the  mere  three  syllables  of 
"cigaro,"  which  in  time  came  to  be  the  gen- 


2  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

eric  term  for  all  tobacco  rolled  up  for  smok- 
ing. In  England,  word  evolution  at  last 
changed  "cigaro"  to  "cigar,"  and  out  of  that 
we  get  our  diminutive  "cigarette"  from  across 
the  English  Channel. 

The  make-up  of  the  cigarette  should  be 
equally  familiar,  but  it  never  is.  Of  the  paper, 
the  tipping,  the  printing,  the  packing,  I  shall 
have  to  speak  later,  as  well  as  of  the  proper- 
ties of  the  entire  product.  What  must  be  first 
considered  is  the  tobacco  itself — the  tobacco, 
which  belongs  to  the  nightshade  (Solona- 
ceae)  family,  to  which  also  belong  so  many 
of  our  best  known  domesticated  food  plants, 
including  the  tomato,  the  eggplant  and  the 
potato.  The  first  thing  that  strikes  the  in- 
vestigator of  the  cigarette  industry  is  the  ig- 
norance of  the  general  public  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  the  cigarette. 

Most  men  smoke  cigarettes,  yet  few  know 
what  they  are  smoking.  My  own  case,  as  sub- 
sequent experience  has  proved,  is  a  case  in 
point. 

Some  years  ago,  after  having  smoked  pipes, 
cigars,  and  to  some  extent  cigarettes,  for 
twenty  years,  I  happened  to  be  motoring  in 
beautiful  Dane  County,  Wisconsin,  one  of  the 
richest  farming  districts  of  the  United  States. 
Land  excellently  cared  for  and  wonderfully 
productive  stretched  away  on  either  side  of 
the  road,  sweeping,  in  every  shade  of  green 
and  brown  and  yellow,  up  and  over  the  low 
hills,  and  of  this  land  acre  after  acre  was  de- 
voted to  what  then  appeared  to  me  to  be  a 
particularly  good  species  of  tobacco.  I 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS  3 

brought  the  car  up  to  a  fence  behind  which  a 
farmer  was  working. 

"That  looks  like  good  tobacco,"  I  said. 

He  nodded.  "The  best  in  the  North,"  said 
he. 

"Does  it  pay  you  well?" 

"Better  than  anything  else." 

"What's  it  used  for?" 

"Smoking." 

"Yes,  but  what  kind  of  smoking?  Cigars,  I 
suppose?" 

The  farmer  nodded  again,  this  time  more 
emphatically. 

"Yes,"  he  said:  "cigars.  It  ain't  quite  the 
sort  that's  good  enough  for  cigarettes." 

At  that  time  I  was  amazed.  Since  then  a 
knowledge  of  tobacco  has  enlightened  me. 
The  farmer  was  right.  Cigarette  manufacture 
is  a  business,  not  a  philanthropy.  It  is  con- 
ducted as  are  all  other  businesses,  not  for 
charity,  but  'for  legitimate  profit;  and  the 
cigarette  maker  has  learned  that,  if  he  wants 
to  retain  his  customers,  he  must  supply  them 
with  nothing  but  the  best  material.  The  poor 
qualities  will  betray  him;  the  commonplace 
will  not  last.  Whether  he  wants  to  or  not,  he 
has  to  provide  better  tobacco  than  is  neces- 
sary in  the  cigar  trade,  and  nothing  but  the 
brightest,  sweetest  and  most  expensive  to- 
bacco is  used  in  the  cigarettes  manufactured 
in  America. 

Thoroughly  to  understand  why  this  is  so, 
it  is  necessary  to  speak  at  some  length  of  the 
make-up  of  other  forms  of  -smoking  tobacco. 
Properly  to  appreciate  how  the  requisite  ma- 


4  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

terial  is  procured,  it  is  necessary  to  know  the 
part  that  nature  plays  in  the  industry. 

Of  all  things  American  nothing  is  more  so 

than  the  cigarette.     It  was  from  the  New 

-..  World  that  tobacco  came  to  the 

*r  attention   of    the    civilized   na- 

ft T  *ions>  the  first  account  of  it:  be' 

^f.  ing  that  which  includes  its  port- 

Clf a  age  to  Europe  by  the  men  that 

sailed  with  Columbus  on  his  voyage  of  dis- 
covery.. Nor  is  this  all.  When,  for  the  first 
time,  a  European  set  foot  in  the  Western 
Hemisphere,  those  Indian  natives  of  San  Sal- 
vador who  so  startled  the  brave  Genoese  by 
blowing  smoke  from  their  mouths  and  nos- 
trils were  really  smoking  crude  and  primitive 
cigarettes- — tobacco  wrapped  in  the  leaves  of 
Indian  corn.*  Bartholomio  de  Las  Casas 
the  apostle  of  the  Indies  (1474-1566),  who 
edited  the  journal  of  Columbus,  himself,  in 
his  "Historia  de  las  Indias,"  tells  of  two  men 
of  Columbus's  party  who,  on  Tuesday,  No- 
vember 6th,  1492,  returned  from  an  expedition 
inland  with  an  account  of  how  the  aborigines 
were  accustomed  to  the  solace  of  tobacco. 
Their  manner  of  smoking,  as  narrated  by  Las 
Casas,  plainly  suggests  the  cigarette,  and 
this  is  accounted  the  earliest  reference  to  the 
use  of  tobacco  in  that  form.  The  natives  of 
the  New  World,  said  the  Spaniard,  "wrap  the 

*Opinions  differ  as  to  the  nature  of  the  leaf  that  was  used 
by  these  aborigines  for  the  purpose  for  which  cigarette  paper 
is  now  employed.  Some  authorities  say  that  it  was  the  leaf  of 
the  palm,  but  the  general  opinion  of  historians  is  that  it  was 
the  leaf  of  maize. 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS  5 

tobacco  in  a  certain  leaf,  in  the  manner  of  a 
musket  formed  of  paper,"  and  "having 
lighted  one  end  of  it,  by  the  other  they  suck, 
absorb  or  receive  that  smoke  inside  with  their 
breath." 

There  is,  of  course,  no  way  of  learning  for 
how  many  centuries  the  Red  Man  had  been 
using  tobacco.  It  is  enough  for  our  present 
purpose  to  know  that  tobacco  smoking  is  an- 
cient and  American,  and  it  is  almost  equally 
interesting  to  reflect  that  corn  and  tobacco, 
the  two  greatest  gifts  of  the  American  Indian 
to  mankind — corn  to  feed  and  tobacco  to  com- 
fort— have  grown  in  volume  and  value  until, 
today,  they  are  a  pair  of  the  greatest  natural 
products  of  the  United  States.  Certainly  the 
former,  already  a  staple  article  of  food  among 
our  own  people,  will  invade  Europe  in  force 
at  the  end  of  the  present  war,  and  certainly 
the  latter  has  for  years  been  used  among  a 
greater  number  of  nations  than  any  other  cul- 
tivated product  of  the  soil,  and  by  more  peo- 
ple than  any  other  product,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  tea  and  coffee. 

Aside  from  such  crops  as  were  necessary  to 
the  maintenance  of  the  individual  pioneer's 
life,  tobacco  furnished  practically  the  first 
agricultural  pursuit  to  those  colonists  who 
came  here  from  England  and  became  the  ori- 
ginal farmers  of  the  New  World.  Many  a  year 
passed  before  there  was  any  other  of  a  mag- 
nitude worthy  of  the  economist's  attention. 

England  was  the  first  country  of  Europe  to 
take  up  smoking,  and  the  practice  grew  with 
such  rapidity  that  there  was,  very  soon,  a  con- 


6  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

stant  and  great  demand  for  tobacco.  Conse- 
quently, it  was  the  English  settlers  at  and 
about  Jamestown,  Virginia,  that  developed 
tobacco  growing  from  the  wild  state  into  the 
beginning  of  scientific  cultivation.  Then, 
when  it  was  found  that,  by  care,  the  leaf  could 
be  improved  in  quality,  the  demand  for  the 
better  grades  increased,  and  there  was  such  a 
tobacco  boom  that  even  the  streets  of  that  lit- 
tle outpost  of  civilization  were  turned  into  to- 
bacco fields. 

For  the  next  two  centuries,  tobacco  culture 
was  closely  identified  with  the  economic, 
w,  social  and  political  growth  of  the 

l;  \}en  colonists,  especially  in  Virginia 

Tobacco  and  Maryland.    In  Maryland  to- 

Was  Legal       bacCQ  wag  made  legal  tender  in 

1732,  at  the  rate  of  a  penny  a 
pound.  It  was  the  legal  payment  for  all 
debts,  including  customs,  taxes  and  the  salar- 
ies of  State  officials  and  ministers  of  the  gos- 
pel. The  tax  levied  for  Baltimore  County  and 
city  as  late  as  1777  was  fixed  at  172  pounds  of 
tobacco  per  poll. 

The  crop  of  the  country  the  year  previous 
was  2,440,947  pounds,  of  which  Maryland  sup- 
plied the  greater  part.  Fluctuating  greatly  in 
yield  and  price  from  decade  to  decade,  the 
crop  in  1914  reached  the  stupendous  total  of 
1,034,679,000  pounds,  valued  at  $101,411,000 
for  the  leaf  as  marketed  by  the  planters.  The 
record  crop  was  1,055,765,000  pounds  in  1909. 

In  scanning  the  Government  reports,  it  is 
at  once  noticeable  that  as  soon  as  the  ciga- 
rette became  popular,  the  advance  of  tobacco 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS  7 

became  phenomenal.  The  periods  of  greatest 
growth,  in  both  volume  of  crops  and  prices 
paid  to  planters,  has  always  been  coincidental 
with  the  gigantic  development  of  the  ciga- 
rette business  in  this  country,  and  largely 
caused  by  it.  It  is  therefore  clear  that  the 
cigarette  has  played  a  very  important  part  in 
furnishing  the  wealth  of  the  nation  as  regards 
the  prosperity  of  the  farmer,  besides  yielding 
an  enormous  revenue  to  the  Government  in 
the  shape  of  internal-revenue  taxes. 

The  cigarette  as  we  now  know  it — that  is 
to  say,  tobacco  enclosed  in  a  paper  tube — is 
doubtless  of  Spanish  origin,  but       D     .     . 
its  form,  like  its  name,  was  per-       Beginning 
fected  in  France.     There,  ciga-  of  "* 

rettes  became  a  government  mo-  ^sarette  & 
nopoly  in  1843,  although  it  was  Popularity 
not  until  a  few  years  after  the  Crimean  War, 
or  about  1860,  that  the  manufacture  of  ciga- 
rettes reached  any  importance  commercially. 
It  was,  in  fact,  the  Crimean  War  that  brought 
world-wide  attention  to  the  cigarette  as  a 
superior  form  of  using  tobacco.  Through  in- 
tercourse with  French,  Italian,  and  especial- 
ly with  Turkish  officers  and  troops  in  the  war 
waged  against  Russia  in  the  Crimea  from 
1854  to  1856.  English  officers  began  following 
the  example  of  their  allies  and  learned  to 
make  cigarettes.  The  soldiers  made  their 
own  cigarettes,  the  Turks  being  particularly 
skillful  in  this  art. 

Coming  back  to  London  after  the  war,  the 
dapper  British  officers,  the  idols  of  the  day, 
continued  to  make  and  smoke  cigarettes,  and 


6  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

naturally  nearly  every  smoker  in  England, 
considering  it  the  smart  thing  to  do,  began, 
clumsily  at  first,  to  follow  their  example. 
Cigarettes  became  the  fashion.  Americans 
soon  brought  the  new  style  in  smoking  home 
from  London,  and  about  1866  manufacturers 
in  both  England  and  the  United  States  began 
to  cater  to  the  trade  of  cigarette  smokers. 
Several  brands  entered  regularly  into  com- 
merce. At  first  they  were  large  and  expen- 
sive, and  all  were  made  by  hand  from  Turkish 
leap- 

<  It  was  at  just  about  this  time  that  a  new' 
type  of  tobacco  had  been  perfected  and  was 
gaining  popularity  in  the  United  States.  This 
tobacco  was  something  entirely  new  and  it 
was  destined  to  revolutionize  the  cigarette 
business  and  to  bring  about  cigarette  produc- 
tion on  a  stupendous  scale— cigarettes  of 
high  grade  at  a  low  price.  We  refer  to  what 
has  become  known  the  world  over  as  "bright" 
Virginia  tobacco. 

The  first  crop  of  this  bright  yellow  tobacco 
was  raised  in  1852  on  one  of  the  sandy  ridges 
of  Caswell  County,  North  Carolina.  Its  cul- 
tivation soon  spread  in  that  county  and  also 
in  Pittsylvania  County,  Virginia.  It  was  of 
such  fine  flavor  and  texture  that  it  made  a 
superior  plug  tobacco  filler  and  wrapper  and 
an  unusually  mild  and  satisfying  smoke.  Up 
to  1869  it  was  limited  to  a  small  area  and  to 
local  consumption,  but  it  was  at  that  time 
that  cigarette  making  had  become  a  fairly 
well  established  industry  and  manufacturers 
had  found  out  that  this  bright  yellow  to- 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS  9 

bacco  made  a  very  superior  quality  of  ciga- 
rette. This  created  a  big  demand  and  the  cul- 
tivation of  that  type  of  tobacco  extended  into 
other  counties  of  North  Carolina  and  Virginia 
and  into  South  Carolina  and  a  small  portion 
of  Eastern  Tennessee,  which  have  in  abund- 
ance the  only  sort  of  soil  upon  which  the 
"bright"  tobacco  can  successfully  be  grown. 

Then  came  the  invention  of  cigarette  mak- 
ing machinery,  first  practical  in  the  early  sev- 
enties. This,  coupled  with  the  _.  _. 
development  of  the  "bright"  The  First 
Virginia  tobacco,  was  the  foun- 
dation  for  the  great  diversity  of 
varieties  and  brands  of  cigarettes 
today.  As  a  consequence,  American  cigarettes 
have  become  known  and  are  used  all  over  the 
world.  Even  in  far  off  Corea,  according  to  a 
consular  report,  they  are  the  best  and  most 
popular  of  all,  and  bid  fair  to  supplant  the 
famous  Corean  pipe-^j) 

So  the  trade  hasfincreased  until  in  1914 
(the  latest  year  for  which  figures  are  avail- 
able), the  cigarette  industry  reached  high 
water  mark  in  its  phenomenal  growth,  and  we 
are  smoking  45,005,715  cigarettes  a  day  and 
manufacturing  16,427,086,000  in  a  year. 

The  reason  for  this  growth  of  the  cigarette 
industry  dates  back,  when  one  considers  fun- 
damentals, to  those  Jamestown  colonists,  of 
whom  I  spoke  a  few  moments  since.  They 
had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  builded  better  than 
they  knew.  Unaware  of  it  though  they  were, 
not  chance  alone  had  made  Virginia  the  birth- 
place of  cultivated  tobacco,  nor  is  it  chance 


10  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

only  that  has  turned  that  state  and  the  re- 
gions immediately  about  it  into  the  perma- 
nent home  of  the  best  grades  of  tobacco.  In 
the  last  analysis,  the  determining  factor  has 
been  the  soil. 

For  the  best  production  of  the  best  tobacco 
a  peculiar  sort  of  soil  is  required,  and  that  sort 
w  ,  of  soil — so  far  as  American  to- 
bacco is  concerned— the  Virginia 
/•mcsf  pioneers  had  stumbled  upon. 

™  Since  their  time,  the  locating  of 

such  soils  for  such  purposes  has 
become  a  science ;  it  has  engaged  some  of  the 
best  energy  of  the  United  States  Agricultural 
Department  and  the  experimental  stations  of 
various  states,  all  of  which  have  confirmed 
the  good  fortune  of  the  Jamestown  settlers. 
To  this  day,  because  of  the  special  adaptability 
of  their  soils  to  the  growing  of  the  finer  grades 
of  tobacco,  the  southern  portion  of  Virginia, 
a  large  part  of  North  Carolina,  a  portion  of 
South  Carolina  and  a  little  of  eastern  Tennes- 
see produce  practically  all  of  the  tobacco  that 
goes  into  our  domestic  cigarettes.  A  similar 
set  of  circumstances  determines  a  similar  con- 
dition in  the  tobacco  growing  districts  of 
Turkey  and  the  Near  East. 

While  there  are  several  reasons  why  only 
the  best  grades  of  tobacco  may  profitably  be 
used  in  cigarettes,  the  foremost  reason  is  that, 
unlike  the  cigar  smoker's  judgment,  the  judg- 
ment of  the  cigarette  smoker  is  formed  solely 
by  the  sense  of  taste,  and,  after  years  of  ex- 
perimentation, it  has  been  demonstrated  that 
no  added  ingredient  will  improve  the  aroma 


WHEN  GENERAL  GEORGE  WASHINGTON  WAS  A 
TOBACCO  PLANTER  AND  EXPORTER 

Facsimile  of  a  letter  written  by  Washington  in  1759  to  the  predeces- 
sors of  the  W.  E.  &  H.  O.  Wills  branch  of  the  Imperial  Tobacco  Com- 
pany, of  Bristol,  England.  In  this  letter  he  notified  them  of  a  shipment  of 
fifty  hogsheads  of  tobacco  of  his  own  and  John  Parke  Custis's,  and  ten  or 
twelve  hogsheads  more  if  he  could  get  them  on  board  the  ship  in  time. 
Washington  was  one  of  the  substantial  tobacco  planters  and  exporters  of 
his  time,  when  tobacco  not  only  ranked  first  among  our  exports,  but  was 
already  the  great  staple  of  the  South  and  was  made  legal  tender  at  a  fixed 
price  per  pound  in  some  of  the  Colonies  for  the  payment  of  all  debts,  in- 
cluding customs  dues,  taxes  and  salaries  of  State  officers  and  ministers  of 
the  gospel. 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS  11 

and  smoking  quality  of  pure  tobacco  leaf  of 
the  finer  sort. 

Although  smoking  in  general  has  reached, 
among  us,  a  stage  where  flagrant  inferiority  is 
not  tolerated  in  a  cigar  or  in  pipe         _ 
tobacco,  it  is  nevertheless  a  fact  c . 

that  mediocrity  is  more  likely  to 
be  overlooked  in  a  cigar  than  in  a  r.  a  a 
cigarette;  for  a  cigar  smoker  Ligaret 
depends  very  largely  on  the  appearance  of 
the  outside  wrapper  of  the  cigar  he  is  about 
to  buy,  and  this  enables  a  clever  manufacturer 
to  roll  inferior  tobacco  into  the  "filler" — the 
name  given  to  the  inner  part  of  a  cigar — so 
that,  by  the  attractiveness  of  a  wrapper,  a 
prospective  purchaser  is  often  predisposed  in 
favor  of  a  really  inferior  cigar. 

Not  so  your  cigarette  smoker.  Knowing 
that  he  forms  his  judgment  of  quality  solely 
by  taste,  cigarette  manufacturers  long  ago 
learned  the  wisdom  of  making  cigarettes  from 
nothing  but  pure  tobacco.  In  fact,  there  is 
nowadays  really  no  such  thing  as  mediocrity 
in  American  made  cigarettes;  all  are  made 
from  pure  tobacco  in  the  purest  paper  wrap- 
pers. The  difference  in  quality  of  various 
brands  is  simply  a  question  of  the  kinds  of  to- 
bacco used ;  it  is  merely  a  matter  of  the  indi- 
vidual taste  of  the  smoker  as  to  what  kind  of 
tobacco  he  prefers. 

To  repeat,  then,  the  cigarette  is  the  highest 
type  of  tobacco  product  and,  compared  with 
the  ordinary  cigar  and  other  forms  in  which 
tobacco  is  used,  it  is  of  a  distinctly  finer  qual- 
ity. This  is  illustrated  in  several  ways,  but 


12  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

nowhere  in  the  long  process  of  making1  a 
modern  cigarette  is  this  superiority  shown 
more  strikingly  than  in  the  parts  played  in  its 
development  by  nature  and  the  tobacco 
grower. 

A  mixture  of  loose  sand  and  clay  makes  the 
perfect  tobacco  soil  for  the  growth  of  what  is 
termed  "bright"  tobacco,  the  finest  of  all  do- 
mestic grades.  This  is  the  cigarette  type,  the 
leaves  of  which  are  of  the  same  variety  that 
is  so  familiar  as  the  beautiful  yellow  wrap- 
pers of  the  higher  grades  of  plug  tobacco  in 
which,  as  every  tobacco  user  knows,  appear- 
ance and  the  natural  taste  mean  everything, 
and  the  soil  necessary  for  its  production  is 
found  in  large  areas  of  Virginia  and  her  sister 
states.  The  typical  "bright"  tobacco  land  is 
very  porous  sand  containing  not  over  eight  or 
ten  per  cent,  of  clay. 

For  the  production  of  tobacco  of  a  quality 
sufficiently  fine  t£>  be  used  in  cigarettes,  this 
sand  must  be  at  least  twelve  inches  deep  upon 
the  sub-soil.  Very  fine  tobacco  is  produced  on 
many  areas  where  the  sand  is  from  five  to  ten 
feet  deep.  As  a  general  rule  the  less  clay 
there  is  in  the  soil  and  the  deeper  the  sand, 
the  finer  the  quality  of  the  tobacco,  provided 
weather  conditions  are  such  that  it  keeps 
growing  continuously;  but  such  very  light 
soils  produce  a  very  small  yield  per  acre,  and 
there  is  danger  of  drought  checking  the 
growth  of  the  plant,  causing  the  leaves  to 
thicken.  So  it  has  come  to  be  recognized  that 
the  land  which  will  yield  the  finest,  most  deli- 
cate cigarette  tobacco  is  this  sandy  soil  un- 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS 


13 


derlaid  at  a  depth  of  from  eighteen  to  twenty- 
two  inches  with  heavier  clay.  This  sub- 
strata of  clay  helps  to  retain  the  moisture 
supply,  renders  the  plant  less  subject  to 
drought,  and  permits  it  to  grow  continuously 

>to  maturity.  Too  much  rain  is  as  damaging 
to  the  growing  crop  as  is  a  drought;  but  the 
particular  section  of  the  South  of  which  we 
are  now  speaking  is  blessed  with  a  compara- 
tively even  season. 

It  is  true  of  tobacco  in  a  greater  degree  than 
of  any  other  staple  agricultural  crop  that  the 
physical  properties  of  the  soil  in- 
fluence the  physiology  of  the 
plant  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
determine  the  distribution  of  the 
many  distinct  types.  Tobacco  of 
one  sort  or  another  may  be  grown  in  nearly 
every  part  of  the  United  States ;  but,  while  it 
can  be  so  widely  grown,  the  flavor  and  quality 
of  the  leaf  are  greatly  influenced  both  by  cli- 
mate and  soil,  and  it  is  surprising  to  find  so 
little  difference  in  the  meteorological  records 
for  the  various  parts  of  the  country  where  to- 
bacco is  grown  and  to  reconcile  this  fact  with 
the  totally  different  varieties  produced.  By 
no  means  is  there  sufficient  variation  to  ex- 
plain the  distribution  of  the  different  classes 
of  tobacco,  and  yet  this  distribution  must  be 
due  to  climatic  changes.* 

Tobacco  is  in  fact  one  of  the  most  sensitive 
of  plants;  it  is  far  more  sensitive  to  meteoro- 


Influence  of 
Soil  and 
Climate  on 
Tobacco 


*See   United   States  Department  of  Agriculture  Farmers* 
Bulletin,  No.  83. 


14  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

logical  conditions  than  are  the  most  delicate 
scientific  instruments.  Even  in  the  extreme 
Southern  regions  where  our  finest  qualities 
are  grown,  tobacco  of  excellent  texture,  such 
as  goes  into  cigarettes,  cannot  be  raised  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  ocean,  nor  even  in 
certain  areas  of  what  otherwise  would  be  con- 
sidered good  tobacco  land ;  but  the  influences 
of  nature  that  bring  this  about  are  too  subtle 
to  be  detected  by  any  of  our  meteorological 
instruments. 

Again,  so  great  is  the  influence  of  soil  upon 
the  quality  of  tobacco  that  a  narrow  strip  of 
perfect,  "bright"  tobacco  land  may  be  separ- 
ated by  only  a  few  feet  from  the  heavier  clay 
soil  on  which  will  grow  only  the  coarser  and 
commoner  types  of  leaf.  Often  on  one  side  of  a 
fence  will  grow  the  superior  cigarette  tobacco, 
while  on  the  other  side  will  grow  only  the 
coarser,  ranker  leaf  not  suitable  for  cigarettes. 
Indeed  we  might  go  further  and  say  that  often 
even  on  the  same  stalk  with  the  fine  cigarette 
tobacco  will  be  found  leaves  too  coarse  in  text- 
ure to  be  suited  to  cigarette  manufacture. 

Nor  does  the  peculiar  sensitiveness  of  the 
tobacco  plant  end  there.  It  reacts  noticeably 
to  the  influence  of  the  soil  upon  which  it 
grows,  producing  a  leaf  that  preserves  a  color 
traceable  to  the  coloring  matter  in  the  soil. 

Everywhere  tobacco  is  grown  there  seems 
to  be  a  decided  reciprocal  relation  between  the 
color  of  the  soil  and  the  color  of  the  tobacco 
leaf  when  it  is  cured.  There  never  has  been 
a  case  reported  in  which  a  tobacco  having  the 
orange  or  lemon  color  characteristic  of  ciga- 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS  15 

rette  tobacco,  has  been  grown  except  on  light- 
colored,  porous  soils;  and  a  remarkable  fact 
about  this  yellow  tobacco  (which  was  devel- 
oped to  a  large  extent  almost  coincidentally 
with  the  development  of  the  modern  cigarette) 
is  that  it  has  made  what  were  the  abandoned 
soils  in  North  Carolina  and  Virginia  the  most 
valuable  for  agricultural  purposes.  Where- 
ever  this  tobacco  is  raised  the  soils  are  practi- 
cally the  same  in  color,  composition,  porosity 
and  general  physical  characteristics  and  con- 
stituent elements. 

The  sensitiveness  of  the  tobacco  plant  af- 
fects the  problem  of  fertilization.  As  a  general 
rule,  it  may  be  said  that  cigarette  tobacco  is 
one  of  the  purest  products  of  the  soil,  because 
it  generally  is  unwise,  often  dangerous,  to  at- 
tempt to  aid  nature  in  its  growth  by  artificial 
means.  No  other  plant  is  so  susceptible  to 
fertilization  as  tobacco,  but  with  the  finer 
plants,  such  as  yield  the  cigarette  leaf,  the  de- 
mand for  its  natural  nourishment  must  be  ex- 
actly met  or  unsatisfactory  results  will  follow. 

Of  course,  it  is  always  fertilized  more  or  less. 
Just  before  the  plants  are  transplanted  in  the 
fields,  for  instance,  fertilizer  is  put  into  each 
hill  to  give  the  plant  a  healthy  start;  but  even 
this  must  be  done  with  almost  scientific  ex- 
actness. Fertilization  tends  always  to  in- 
crease the  yield  of  tobacco  per  acre,  but  when 
quantities  of  nitrogen  are  added  to  the  soil 
there  is  a  tendency  for  the  leaf  to  become 
thicker,  heavier,  and  more  gummy,  and,  by  the 
same  token,  ranker  in  flavor.  All  these  are 


16  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

cheapening  qualities  and  are  highly  undesir- 
able in  tobacco  used  in  the  manufacture  of 
the  modern  cigarette. 

In  a  word,  the  chemistry  of  soil,  fertilizer 
and  plant  has  become  an  important  industrial 
science,  nearly  an  exact  science,  and  this  sci- 
ence has  made  it  plain  that,  whereas  fertiliza- 
tion is  highly  desirable  for  tobacco  raised  for 
other  manufacturing  purposes  where  bulk 
rather  than  high  quality  counts,  yet  fertiliza- 
tion in  any  marked  degree  means  deteriora- 
tion for  the  finer  grades — the  cigarette 
grades — of  the  plant. 

It  is,  therefore,  clear  that  the  question  of 
the  quality  of  tobacco  is  chiefly  dependent 
upon  soil,  and  nature  has  so  planned  that  the 
cream  of  our  tobacco  soil,  the  combination  of 
sand  and  clay  of  just  the  right  proportion,  is 
found  mainly  in  Virginia  and  North  Carolina 
in  what  are  termed  the  "old  belt"  and  "new 
belt." 

On  these  "bright"  tobacco  lands  grows  the 
finest  grade,  the  highest  priced  tobacco — 
the  aristocracy  of  tobaccodom — and  it  is  this 
aristocrat  of  all  tobacco  that  is  utilized  in  all 
of  our  domestic  cigarettes.  So  much  for  the 
important  question  of  soil. 

It  is  not,  however,  in  the  matter  of  the 
necessary  soil  alone  that  the  superiority  of 
cigarette  tobacco  is  shown.  That  is  again 
made  evident  when  we  come  to  consider  the 
selection  of  seed,  the  growing  of  the  plants 
and  their  preparation  for  transplanting. 

The  seeds  of  cigarette  tobacco  are  among 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS  17 

the  miracles  of  nature.     One  tablespoonful 

will  produce  plants  enough  to 

cover  ten  acres  of  ground.    Cen-   SM       TL 

turies  of  painstaking  culture  and      MoreThan 

crossing  have  been  devoted  to  .}?,*, 

their  development.    If  sold,  they 

are  worth  many  times  their  weight  in  gold; 

but  more  often  than  not  they  are  not  offered 

for  sale;  they  are  saved  from  the  perfect  plants 

in  the  fields  and  kept  from  year  to  year  as  the 

choicest  property  of  families  of  tobacco  raisers. 

Each  season  the  choicest  plants  in  a  field 
are  permitted  to  develop  to  full  maturity  and 
fruition  in  order  to  supply  the  seeds  for  the 
coming  year,  thus  insuring  the  maintenance, 
or  the  bettering,  of  quality.  These  plants  are 
carefully  cultivated  with  special  reference  to 
their  essential  physiological  function,  the  per- 
petuation of  the  species. 

Nor  is  this  easy,  for,  although  the  tobacco 
flower  is  perfect  in  that  it  is  self-fertile  and 
thus  does  not  depend  on  winds  or  insects  for 
the  carrying  of  pollen,  there  is  the  disadvan- 
tage that  the  plant  crosses  very  readily.  This, 
to  be  sure,  is  sometimes  desirable  in  that  it 
makes  it  easily  modified  to  meet  local  condi- 
tions; yet  it  demands  extreme  vigilance  for 
the  prevention  of  accidental  crossing  that 
might  result  in  an  inferior  grade  of  seed,  or  a 
change  of  any  kind  that  would  alter  the  char- 
acter of  the  next  year's  crop. 

Through  this  care  in  the  raising  of  seed  in- 
dividual farmers  may  be  depended  upon  as  the 
years  roll  by  to  supply  just  the  quality  of 
tobacco  that  the  manufacturer  of  a  certain 


18  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

cigarette  requires  to  maintain  the  aroma  of  a 
particular  brand.  One  generation  follows 
another,  and  this  rare  seed  is  handed  down  as 
the  choicest  legacy.  On  the  quality  of  the  seed 
the  tobacco  fortunes  of  the  South  have  been 
built. 

Like  the  proverbial  woman's  work,  the  work 
of  the  tobacco  raiser  is  "never  done."  Before 
he  has  finished  curing  and  marketing  the  crop 
of  one  season  he  must  begin  the  preparation 
of  the  soil  for  the  next  season's  crop,  and  this 
preparation  for  transplanting  tobacco  plants 
is  an  all-winter  operation. 

Early  in  the  fall,  the  land,  if  it  is  old,  must 
be  plowed  to  a  depth  of  about  eight  inches.  In 
February  comes  the  time  for  a  second  plow- 
ing. Not  many  other  crops  need  such  care- 
ful preparation  of  the  top  soil.  It  must  be 
simply  scratched  over.  , 

About  the  last  of  April  or  the  first  of  May 
— even  earlier,  if  the  season  permits — the  land 

.  must  be   plowed   again  to   the 

Preparing         game     depth     ag     jn     February 

Soil  and  (three  Qr  £our  inches)  and  then 

it  must  be  thoroughly   pulver- 
planting  ized  with  drags  Qr  harrows  and 

rollers.  By  this  time  it  is  ready  for  marking 
off  in  rows  three  feet  and  three  inches  apart 
each  way,  and  for  the  making  of  hills  at  the 
intersections  of  these  rows. 

With  new  land  the  preparation  process  is 
even  more  painstaking,  and  the  finest  quality 
of  cigarette  tobacco  is  grown  on  new  land, 
virgin  soil  containing  in  abundance  all  of  the 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS  19 

elements  that  are  necessary  to  nourish, 
flavor  and  color  the  growing  plant. 

All  this  while  there  is  proceeding  the  deli- 
cate preparation  of  the  tobacco  seeds  for 
planting.  Each  year  the  plant  must  be  reared 
from  the  beginning. 

Most  farmers  have  adopted  the  plan  of 
sprouting  seeds  before  they  go  into  the  first 
seed-beds.  To  do  this  the  seeds  are  spread 
upon  several  layers  of  woolen  cloth  to  the 
depth  of  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch.  Then 
they  are  well  covered  with  other  woolen  cloths 
and  the  whole  mass  is  thoroughly  soaked  with 
warm  water  and  placed  near  a  stove  in  the 
farmer's  kitchen  or  living-room,  or  in  some 
other  equally  warm  place.  After  that  they 
are  kept  moist  with  warm  water  and  in  three 
or  four  days  small  white  spots  upon  the  al- 
most microscopic  seeds  indicate  germination. 
Then  they  are  ready  to  be  sown  in  the  seed- 
beds. 

While  the  seeds  are  thus  germinating  in  the 
warm  house,  the  farmer  and  his  helpers  are 
busy  preparing  the  seed-beds,  which  is  another 
of  the  delicate  operations  necessary  to  pro- 
duce tobacco  of  the  highest  quality.  The 
plants  must  be  raised  in  these  beds  until  they 
'are  large  enough  to  transplant. 

When  new  land  is  used  for  the  beds  great 
care  is  exercised  in  determining  the  proper 
location.  It  must  be  in  a  sheltered  spot  slop- 
ing gently  to  the  South  and  well  exposed  to 
the  direct  rays  of  the  sun.  Over  the  area  se- 
lected for  the  seed-bed,  dry  brush  is  burned 
until  the  soil  is  made  hot  enough  to  kill  all 


20  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

seeds  of  grass  and  weeds.  On  old  land  the 
baking  must  make  the  soil  hot  at  least  a  half- 
inch  in  depth,  and  on  new  land  the  heat  must 
go  much  farther. 

It  is  an  established  fact  that,  besides  the 
advantage  of  killing  foul  seeds,  the  delicate 
tobacco  seeds  develop  best  upon  soil  that  has 
been  baked  in  this  manner.  Then  with  a  hoe 
the  earth  is  stirred  to  a  depth  of  two  or  three 
inches,  care  being  taken  to  reverse  the  soil  as 
little  as  possible,  and  not  to  disturb  the  sub- 
soil. If  an  inch  of  surface  soil  is  removed  or 
the  sub-soil  brought  to  the  surface,  the  to- 
bacco plants  will  not  grow. 

Next,  the  earth  is  raked  and  worked  until 
the  surface  is  mellow  and  fine;  then  fer- 
tilizer is  applied  which,  in  the  case  of  seeds 
such  as  grow  cigarette  tobacco  plants,  must  be 
extremely  weak.  All  roots  and  trash  must  be 
carefully  eliminated.  Trenches  must  be  dug 
on  the  upper  side  and  at  the  ends  of  the  bed 
in  order  that  rains  will  not  drift  the  seeds  or 
cause  the  soil  to  cover  them  too  deeply. 

Now  the  seeds  are  ready  for  planting,  and 
the  soil  is  ready  to  receive  them.  Accordingly, 
the  seeds  are  mixed  with  dry  ashes  and  sown 
evenly  over  the  bed.  Then  they  are  very 
gently  brushed  or  raked  into  the  soil,  and  the 
earth  made  compact  by  treading,  leaving  the 
surface  smooth  and  even.  But  the  process 
does  not  end  there:  the  cigarette  tobacco 
plant  demands  as  much  attention  during  its 
immaturity  as  does  a  child. 

First  of  all,  the  beds  must  be  covered  in 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS  21 

some  manner  to  protect  the  seeds  while  grow- 
ing. For  years  a  common  practice  has  been  to 
construct  a  covering  of  light  brush  dense 
enough  to  shade  the  plants  and  to  protect 
them  from  dry  winds  and  possible  frosts.  This 
brush  may  be  kept  on  the  beds  until  the  plants 
are  fully  half  grown  to  the  size  necessary  for 
transplanting. 

A  more  modern  method,  however,  is  to 
cover  the  beds  with  canvas.  The  material 
used  is  midway  between  the  common  grade 
and  cheese-cloth.  This  cover  is  removed  a 
few  days  before  the  plants  are  large  enough 
to  be  set  out.  If  the  seed  is  sprouted  before 
sowing  and  the  beds  covered  with  canvas, 
plants  large  enough  for  transplanting  may  be 
grown  in  from  thirty  to  forty  days. 

Not  until  the  largest  leaves  are  two  and  a 
half  inches  wide  are  the  plants  ready  to  be 
set,  and  knowing  just  when  and  how  to  trans- 
plant these  plants  that  have  the  delicacy  of 
orchids  is  one  of  the  most  important  steps  in 
the  raising  of  the  highest  grades  of  tobacco. 
It  has  taken  generations  of  expert  knowledge 
to  make  the  tobacco  growers  of  Virginia  and 
North  Carolina  the  acknowledged  leaders  in 
the  production  of  high  grade  tobacco;  and 
their  leadership,  apart  from  the  influence  of 
the  soil  and  climate,  lies  largely  in  their  skill 
at  transplanting. 

Showery  or  damp,  cloudy  weather  is  the 
best  condition  for  this  process.  Then  the 
seed-beds  are  saturated  with  water  to  loosen 
the  soil,  so  that  the  delicate  plants  may  be 
drawn  without  injury  to  the  roots.  Each  plant 


22  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

must  be  carefully  pulled  out  by  itself  and  laid 
straight  in  a  position  to  protect  the  leaves 
from  dirt.  Holes  are  made  in  the  hills  formed 
in  the  fields  and  the  plants  inserted,  only  one 
in  each  hill,  and  the  earth  pressed  firmly  about 
them. 

It  is  at  this  early  stage  that  the  dread  of  the 
tobacco  grower,  the  deadly  cutworm,  must  be 

DJ       D  watched  for  and  killed  as  soon  as 

lantfest       found       Algo   during  this   early 

a*  .  .  stage  the  fields  must  be  carefully 

"  looked  over  from  day  to  day  and 

good  healthy  plants  substituted 
for  those  which  do  not  appear  to  be  doing 
well,  or  which  have  been  attacked  by  cut- 
worms. 

Then  comes  cultivation.  In  preparing  the 
soil  for  a  crop  of  tobacco  it  should  be,  and 
usually  is,  put  in  such  perfect  condition  that 
no  great  amount  of  future  cultivation  is  re- 
quired excepting  to  kill  weeds  and  keep  the 
surface  mellow — processes  in  themselves  suf- 
ficiently onerous.  The  best  time  to  kill  weeds 
is  just  before  they  make  their  appearance 
upon  the  surface. 

The  roots  of  tobacco  plants  grow  very 
rapidly  and  soon  fill  the  earth  completely  be- 
tween the  rows.  That  is  why  it  is  important 
carefully  to  cultivate  the  soil  throughout  the 
winter  and  spring,  thus  obviating  the  neces- 
sity of  agitating  it  more  than  is  needed  to 
keep  it  loose  and  mellow  on  the  surface  while 
the  tobacco  is  developing  to  maturity. 

It  is  at  this  stage  that  a  new  enemy  is  likely 
to  appear.  This  is  the  tobacco  plants'  direct 


THE  PART  NATURE  PLAYS  23 

foe,  the  green  hornworm,  or  hornblower  as  it 
is  called  in  some  parts  of  the  country,  which 
generally  puts  in  an  early  appearance,  and, 
from  now  on,  must  be  ceaselessly  hunted  and 
destroyed  throughout  the  tobacco  growing 
season.  The  hornworm  is  the  caterpillar  of  a 
'  large  sphinx  moth,  which  eats  the  leaves  of 
the  tomato  and  of  other  allied  plants  as  well 
as  those  of  tobacco.  It  is  the  most  evasive  of 
all  tobacco  pests.  The  first  week  of  its  exist- 
ence is  devoted  to  eating  a  few  small  holes  in 
the  leaf  near  the  spot  where  the  egg  that 
germinates  it  was  deposited  by  the  parent 
moth.  This  is  generally  upon  a  lower  leaf 
where  it  is  difficult  to  see  the  holes  which  in- 
dicate its  hiding  place  during  the  first  week  of 
its  life,  and  it  is  these  holes  that  aid  in  the 
worm's  detection,  if  only  the  grower  is  vigi- 
lant. 

Nevertheless,  the  farmer  will  not  be  safe 
when  he  has  slain  one  brood.  Two,  or  even 
more,  generations  of  these  worms  may  de- 
velop in  a  season,  and  although  several 
methods  for  the  destruction  of  this  greatest 
enemy  of  tobacco  are  known  and  practiced,  no 
means  of  permanent  eradication  have  yet  been 
discovered. 

Meanwhile,  during  the  development  of  the 
tobacco  plant,  there  are  three  more  important 
processes  for  the  farmer  to  follow.  These  are 
priming,  topping  and  sucker  removal. 

Priming  is  the  stripping  off  of  the  lower 
leaves  of  a  plant,  leaving  the  stalk  bare  from 
six  to  eight  inches  above  the  surface  of  the 
hill,  a  process  necessary  for  much  the  same 


24  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

reason  that  a  similar  process  is  necessary  in 
the  development  of  the  American  Beauty  rose. 
Imperfect  leaves  must  be  removed  from  any 
part  of  the  stalk,  and  watching  for  them  must 
be  kept  up  throughout  the  growing  season. 

Topping  is  the  removal  of  the  upper,  or 
flower,  stalk  of  the  plant  in  order  that  it  may 
not  go  to  seed,  and  also  in  order  that  the 
leaves  which  are  to  be  used  for  commercial 
purposes  may  get  the  full  benefit  of  all  the 
nourishment  given  to  the  plant  by  the  soil 
and  the  air.  By  this  process  from  ten  to  fif- 
teen leaves  are  left  on  each  plant,  according  to 
the  nature  of  the  soil  and  the  type  of  the 
tobacco,  the  "bright"  variety  of  tobacco — the 
variety  that  produces  the  superior  cigarette 
leaf — being  topped  higher  than  the  dark  vari- 
eties and  therefore  bearing  a  larger  number  of 
delicate  leaves. 

Finally,  suckers  will  appear  at  the  point 
where  the  flower  stalk  was  broken  off.  Their 
unhampered  development  means  the  sapping 
of  the  plant's  vitality.  Week  by  week  they 
must  be  removed  as  rapidly  as  they  come,  thus 
insuring  the  maximum  of  stimulation  to  the 
growing  leaf. 

Long  experience  is  required  for  the  deter- 
mination of  the  exact  stage  of  development  at 
which  the  plant  must  be  submitted  to  the  first 
two  of  these  operations;  but  when  that  requi- 
site is  acquired,  the  tobacco  grower — and 
especially  the  grower  of  cigarette  tobacco — is 
well-nigh  an  expert.  Having  followed  his 
plants  so  far,  we  may  now  begin  to  consider 
the  question  of  the  harvest. 


CHAPTER  II 

HARVESTING  AND  CURING 

Tobacco    Ripened   as    Nature    Intended  —  Curing    "Bright" 

Tobacco  an  Agricultural  Fine  Art — Curing  by  the  Flue 

Method — Stripping  and  Sorting  the  Leaves — 

From  Farmer  to  Auction  Warehouse. 

MORE  than  once  in  the  preceding  chapter 
I  applied  the  adjective  "scientific"  to 
phases  of  tobacco  growing,  and  that 
adjective  was  applied  correctly,  for  agricul- 
ture has  long  since  become  a  science,  with 
colleges  for  its  especial  teaching,  laboratories 
for  its  branches  of  research,  savants  for  its  in- 
vestigation, a  department  in  the  national  cabi- 
net and  in  each  of  the  state  governments. 
There  are  experimental  stations  throughout 
the  country,  and  there  is  scarcely  one  of  these 
that  has  not  given  close  attention  to  tobacco 
raising. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  many  points  at 
which  the  cultivation  of  cigarette  tobacco  and 
the  manufacture  of  the  cigarette  rise  from  a 
science  to  something  closely  akin  to  an  art, 
because  often  the  delicate  processes  involved 
cannot  be  subjected  to  any  hard  and  fast  rule, 
and  not  the  least  of  these  is,  as  has  already 
been  intimated,  the  length  of  time  that  the 
plants  shall  be  permitted  to  grow  between 
"topping"  and  harvest. 

A  vast  amount  of  experience  is  needed  to 
determine  that,  in  order  to  decide  on  just  the 

25 


26  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

right  color  and  proper  stage  of  maturity  of  the 
leaves  before  the  harvest  begins. 

True  as  it  is  of  all  tobaccos,  especially  does 
this  apply  to  the  superior  tobacco  leaves  that 
are  used  in  American  cigarettes,  and  it  is  at 
this  stage  of  the  culture  that  the  work  of  ex- 
perts finally  begins  to  count  most  heavily. 

As  a  general  statement  it  may  be  said  that 
the  tobacco  which  goes  into  our  domestic 
cigarettes  is  the  ripest,  most  perfect  product 
of  nature,  because  it  is  always  allowed  to 
ripen  as  nature  intended  it  should.  But  to 
insure  uniformity  of  quality,  a  large  percen- 
tage of  the  "bright"  tobacco,  which  is  of  a  pre- 
cocious character,  is  taken  from  the  stalks 
("pruned"  is  the  technical  term  applied  to  the 
process)  as  the  leaves  ripen  in  the  field  in  ad- 
vance of  their  comrades,  and  these  leaves  are 
immediately  taken  to  the  curing  barn  and 
strung  up. 

"Ripened  on  the  hill"  is  the  technical,  or 
rather  homely,  Southern  phrase  that  tells  how 
Tobacco  the  "briSht"  yellow  tobacco, 

Ripened  which  furnishes  the  contents  of 

As  Nature  t^ie  bu^  °^  American  cigarettes, 
Intended  grows  to  maturity.  It  means 
that  the  leaves  have  not  been 
harvested  until  they  have  been  thoroughly 
ripened,  thoroughly  sweetened  by  nature; 
until  they  have  received  the  full  benefit  of  the 
air  and  soil  and  have  attained,  through  the 
secretions  of  gums  and  oily  matter,  their  full 
fragrance  and  proper  texture. 

There  is  no  one  that  does  not  appreciate 
the  difference  in  flavor  between  fruit  ripened 


HARVESTING  AND  CURING  27 

on  bush  or  branch,  receiving  the  supreme 
beneficent  touch  of  the  sun  which  completes 
the  chemical  process  of  natural  ripening,  and 
fruit  that  is  picked  green  and  left  to  ripen  on 
a  shelf,  or  is  brought  to  edibility  by  some  un- 
natural, artificial  means.  Now,  there  is  just 
that  difference  between  the  flavor,  the  aroma 
of  tobacco  picked  green  and  the  golden  leaves 
grown  in  the  best  Southern  soil  which  go  into 
the  popular  American  cigarettes.  They  have 
been  sweetened  by  nature,  bathed  to  the  last 
day  in  the  pure  air  of  the  hill  countries,  in 
the  district  of  famous  health  resorts;  they 
have  the  fragrance,  the  mellowness,  the  thor- 
ough ripeness  that  the  laws  of  life  intended 
them  to  have. 

Thus  it  is  with  this  sensitive  species  of  plant 
now  become  a  thoroughbred,  that  the  grower 
has  to  do,  and  it  is  easy  to  see        D 
how  he  must  be  guided  only  by       Properties 
the  utmost  nicety  of  perception  _.  °   ' 

toward     its     harvesting,     must  /o&acc 

seize  the  precise  moment,  deter- 
mine almost  to  an  hour  its  stage  of  perfect 
ripeness.  He  watches,  as  a  mother  watches 
her  child,  the  intensifying  green  of  the  to- 
bacco leaf,  which  indicates  that  it  is  rich  in  the 
nitrogenous  properties  that  constitute  its  vi- 
tality and  furnish  its  food  supply. 

He  knows  that,  after  "topping,"  the  food 
stored  by  the  leaf  is  not  carried  to  other  parts 
of  the  plant,  remaining  instead  in  those  leaves 
and  accumulating  there,  and  that,  as  a  result 
of  this,  there  is  an  increase  in  the  size  and 
body  of  the  leaves  greater  than  that  in  any 


28  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

other   of   our   common    agricultural    plants. 

Day  by  day,  the  expert  sees  this  food  sup- 
ply deposited  as  starch  granules  in  the  matur- 
ing tissues.  He  knows  that  the  interchange  of 
ingredients  will  manifest  itself  in  light-tinted 
flecks  on  the  ripe  product,  that  the  accumula- 
tion of  the  starch  will  make  for  the  brittleness 
that  is  one  of  the  surest  signs  of  a  ripened 
leaf.  Aware  that  this  replacement  has  a 
marked  effect  on  the  flavor,  color  and  elastic- 
ity of  the  tobacco,  he  follows  it  with  a  scru- 
tiny well  nigh  intense  and,  when  he  sees  the 
work  at  the  height  of  its  efficiency,  he  orders 
the  harvest  to  begin. 

That  harvesting  is,  of  course,  one  of  the 
most  important  steps  in  the  long  line  of  the 
process  to  which  the  yellow  tobacco  is  sub- 
mitted in  its  journey  toward  the  completed 
cigarette — a  journey,  by  the  way,  that  lasts 
from  three  to  five  years.  It  is  the  first  step  in 
a  journey  that  changes  the  tobacco  from  an 
agricultural  plant  to  a  purely  commercial 
commodity. 

Although  tobacco  should  be  planted  in 
showery,  or  at  least  damp  weather,  it  must  be 
harvested  only  on  days  that  are  dry  in  order 
that  the  leaf  may  be  absolutely  clean,  unspot- 
ted, and  free  from  the  various  fungus  growths 
which  are  certain  to  attack  it  unless,  in  its  cur- 
ing, it  is  carefully  handled  by  experts  of  long 
experience  who  have  an  eye  for  such  perils. 

Because  of  similar  reasons,  the  doors  of  the 
curing  barn,  and  the  ventilators  on  its  sides, 
must  be  kept  open  for  several  days  before  the 
harvest  and  the  whole  interior  of  the  building 


HARVESTING  AND  CURING  29 

thoroughly  aired.  Indeed,  the  curing-barn 
should  be  in  complete  readiness,  for  it  is  es- 
sential that  it  be  entirely  filled  in  one  day, 
since  the  curing  process  begins  immediately 
after  the  tobacco  is  put  in,  and  every  hour 
brings  about  changes  that  seriously  affect  the 
quality  of  the  product. 

Now  the  harvesters  enter  the  fields.  They 
cut  the  plant  from  the  ground,  stalk  and  all. 
First  the  stalks  are  split  with  a  thin  knife 
from  the  top  down  nearly  to  the  bottom  leaves 
and  then  are  cut  off  below  those  leaves.  The 
tobacco  plants  are  next  put  on  laths.  Six 
or  eight  plants  are  put  on  each  lath,  and  in 
this  manner  they  are  hauled  to  the  curing- 
barn  and  hung  upon  poles,  the  laths  being 
placed  from  six  to  twelve  inches  apart.  As 
soon  as  the  barn  is  full,  all  loose  leaves  and 
trash  are  removed  and  the  place  is  made  clean 
and  sanitary. 

One  might  suppose  that  now  the  farmer 
could  close  his  barn  doors  and  wait  fruition. 
Not  so.  It  is  at  this  stage  that  -. 

the  grower  of  tobacco  in  general  Menaces 
has  to  guard  against  a  danger  *n  . 

from  the  greatest  of  all  menaces 
in  the  curing  barns  the  world 
over.    That  is  what  is  known  as  pole-sweat,  or 
house-burn.    It  is  a  disease  caused  by  some  of 
the  lower  organisms  which  attack  the  constit- 
uents of  the  tobacco  leaf  that  give  it  stiffness 
and  toughness.    The  leaf  so  attacked  simply 
falls  apart,  because  the  tissues  have  been  soft- 
ened and  have  lost  their  coherency.    Pole- 
sweat  occurs  in  periods  of  prolonged  wet, 


SO  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

humid  weather  accompanied  by  relatively 
high  temperatures  and  is  encouraged  when 
plants  are  crowded  too  closely  together. 

Indeed,  once  the  tobacco  is  in  the  curing 
barn,  the  thermometer  plays  a  very  important 
part  in  its  further  perfecting;  but  the  tobacco 
grower  long  ago  learned  that  the  tobacco  leaf 
itself  is  more  delicate,  more  sensitive  to  tem- 
perature, than  the  most  delicate  scientific  in- 
strument. It  is  even  a  common  practice  in  the 
tobacco  country  to  use  a  tobacco  leaf  as  a  bar- 
ometer, because  it  accurately  foretells  any  at- 
mospheric changes.  True,  cigarette  tobacco 
is  less  open  to  pole-sweat  and  similar  perils 
than  are  other  tobaccos,  because  the  cigarette 
grade  is  more  closely  guarded,  and  because  it 
is  entirely  cured  in  barns  warmed  by  a  nicely 
graduated  artificial  heat  that  makes  their  in- 
terior practically  independent  of  outside 
weather  conditions.  But  this  only  makes  the 
expert  the  more  busy.  Since  he  is  free  of  the 
weather,  he  must  be  bound  to  the  regulation 
of  his  heating  plant. 

Although  the  physical  characteristics,  as 
well  as  the  composition,  of  the  tobacco  leaf 
are  greatly  influenced  by  climate,  soil  and  fer- 
tilizers and  the  skill  of  the  growers,  the  qual- 
ity of  the  finished  product  depends  in  even 
larger  measure  on  the  care  and  skill  displayed 
in  the  curing  and  fermentation  of  the  leaf. 
It  is  therefore  evident  that,  of  all  the  import- 
ant crops  in  this  greatest  of  all  agricultural 
nations,  there  is  none  which  is  so  dependent 
on  the  care,  skill  and  judgment  of  its  pro- 
ducers as  tobacco.  A  crop  of  the  highest 


HARVESTING  AND  CURING  31 

promise  may,  under  unfavorable  conditions, 
be  irretrievably  damaged  in  the  curing  barn. 

As  may  be  easily  shown,  curing  means 
a  great  deal  more  than  mere  drying.  If  a  to- 
bacco leaf  taken  from  a  plant  at  harvest  time 
were  put  into  an  oven  and  dried  rapidly,  and 
then  rolled  into  a  cigar,  or  some  other  conven- 
ient form  for  smoking,  it  is  doutful  if  any  con- 
sumer would  recognize  it  as  tobacco.  Curing, 
in  brief,  involves  a  number  of  important 
changes  in  composition  which  may  be  brought 
about  only  under  well  defined  conditions  care- 
fully produced. 

Years  since,  it  was  found  that  the  import- 
ant properties  of  the  leaf  could  be  forced  to 
develop  along  quite  different  Curing 

lines  by  modifying  the  condi-  "Bright** 
tions  of  curing.  The  most  valu-  Tobacco  an 
able  qualities  of  one  type  may  Agricultural 
not  be  at  all  desirable  in  an-  -  Fine  Art 
other,  so  the  grower  must  first  acquaint  him- 
self with  the  trade  requirements  of  the  partic- 
ular type  which  he  can  produce  to  best  advarir 
tage,  and  then  determine  as  nearly  as  possible 
the  most  favorable  conditions  of  curing  for 
the  development  of  its  finer  qualities.  ,  Know- 
ing just  what  the  manufacturers  of  cigarettes 
require  in  order  to  maintain  their  standards 
of  quality,  the  growers  of  "bright"  tobacco 
in  the  "old"  and  "new"  belts  of  the  South 
have  indeed  brought  the  raising  and  curing  of 
the  best  cigarette  tobacco  in  the  world  to  an 
agricultural  fine  art. 

Of  course,  in  the  early  stages  of  the  indus- 
try, methods  were  rough  and  ready,  and  then 


32  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

all  tobacco  was  either  sun  cured  by  hanging 
upon  scaffolds  out  of  doors  for  from  five  to  ten 
days,  and  then  air  cured  in  barns;  or,  in  many 
districts,  it  was  cured  over  open  fires.  But, 
excepting  for  coarse  cigar  and  chewing  to- 
bacco, these  methods  of  curing  are  now  ob- 
solete, and  today  all  the  cigarette  tobacco  in 
this  country  is  cured  by  the  flue  method, 
which  is  the  best  process  that  has  been  de- 
vised for  keeping  the  product  pure,  and  assur- 
ing the  retention  of  its  full  flavor. 

Science  and  the  work  of  experts  figure 
prominently  in  this  difficult  process  of  curing 
"bright"  tobacco  with  flues,  and  much  practice 
is  required  to  insure  the  perfect  results  that 
have  to  be  obtained. 

Each  grower  of  "bright"  tobacco  has  one  or 
more  of  these  curing  barns  on  his  plantation, 
whither  the  tobacco  that  has  been  ripened  by 
nature  is  taken  directly  from  the  fields.  The 
barns,  still  mostly  built  of  logs,  are  one  of  the 
most  distinguishing  features  of  the  landscape 
in  the  "bright"  tobacco  states.  An  unusually 
successful  planter  may  have  five  or  six  of  them 
clustered  conveniently  about  his  house.  The 
curing  barn  is  practically  air  tight,  but  is  pro- 
vided with  ample  ventilation,  which  may 
readily  be  controlled. 

The  farmer  and  his  expert  helpers  must 
study  each  crop  that  he  raises,  and  thereby  de- 
termine just  the  manner  in  which  it  shall  be 
handled  in  the  curing  barn.  The  sap  is  the 
life  of  the  leaf,  and  the  object  in  curing  is  to 
expel  the  sap  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  leaf 


HARVESTING  AND  CURING  33 

the  desired  color,  and  to  prevent,  by  improper, 
or  too  slow,  or  too  rapid  curing,  the  exudation 
of  the  juices  which  give  tobacco  its  flavor  and 
suppleness.  The  amount  and  quality  of  the 
sap  must  determine  the  degree  of  curing  to 
which  the  tobacco  is  to  be  subjected. 

After  the  tobacco  enters  the  curing  barn 
constant  vigilance  is  the  price  a  farmer  mus£ 
pay  in  order  that  his  crop  shall  ~  . 

not  be  ruined  in  this  vital  stage  fc'f/f 

of  its  development.      He  must  y£  e 

watch  the  curing    process    day  M    ,***. 

and  night,  for  a  change  of  a  few 
degrees  in  the  temperature  would  be  more 
than  likely  to  ruin  every  pound  of  tobacco  and 
make  his  year's  work  a  complete  failure. 

The  distinctive  feature  of  the  flue  method 
of  curing  tobacco  is  that  the  curing  barn  is 
equipped  with  a  system  of  large  pipes  through 
which  air  from  furnaces  heated  to  varying 
temperatures  is  passed  throughout  the  curing. 
The  smoke,  of  course,  does  not  come  in  con- 
tact with  the  tobacco,  as  it  does  in  the  open 
fire  method  of  curing,  which  is  altogether  out- 
of-date  so  far  as  cigarette  tobacco  is  con- 
cerned. 

One  of  the  most  popular  methods  of  curing 
this  "bright"  tobacco  with  flues,  which  will 
vary  slightly  as  to  degrees  of  temperature 
with  local  or  seasonal  conditions,  may  be  de- 
scribed as  follows : 

First  comes  the  yellowing  process,  during 
which,  for  from  twenty-four  to  thirty  hours, 
the  tobacco  is  submitted  to  a  heat  of  from  90 


34  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

to  100  degrees,  permeating  every  foot  of  the 
area  of  the  curing  barn. 

The  remaining  processes  are  for  the  fixing 
of  color,  the  curing  of  the  leaf  and  the  curing 
of  the  stem  and  stock  of  the  plant.  To  carry 
out  these  processes,  the  temperature  is  raised 
two  degrees  an  hour  up  to  130  degrees,  where 
it  remains  until  the  leaf  is  cured,  when  the 
heat  is  raised  gradually  to  170  or  180  degrees, 
this  latter  process  comprising  the  curing  of 
the  stem  and  stalk. 

The  principal  changes  in  composition 
brought  about  in  curing  are  dependent  on  the 
life  of  the  minute  cells  in  the  leaf.  It  is  the 
extent  or  cpmpleteness  of  these  changes  that 
characterizes  the  difference  between  air  curing 
and  flue  curing.  The  typical  "bright"  yellow 
tobacco,  such  as  goes  into  cigarettes,  being 
ripe  at  the  time  of  harvest,  is  relatively  richer 
in  starchy  matters  than  the  coarser  tobaccos 
that  may  be  cured  without  the  use  of  heat. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  brown- 
ish color  desired  in  cigar  tobacco  develops 
from  the  green  of  the  leaf,  the  yellow  color  in 
cigarette  tobacco  is  not  formed  directly  from 
the  green,  but  is  already  present  in  the  grow- 
ing leaf.  The  rapid  appearance  of  the  yellow 
color  in  the  nature-ripened  cigarette  tobacco 
does  not  afford  sufficient  time  for  the  trans- 
formation of  all  the  starchy  matter ;  so  as  soon 
as  this  stage  is  reached  the  curing  must  be 
hastened  to  prevent  any  further  change  of 
color. 

The  real  object  of  the  cure  is  the  killing  of 


HARVESTING  AND  CURING  35 

the  leaf.  That  sounds  paradoxical,  but  it  is 
so.  It  is  one  case  where  the 
"cure"  kills  with  a  beneficent 
purpose.  The  cure  is  finished 
when  the  midrib  of  the  leaf 
where  it  joins  the  stalk  is  dead, 
and  has  become  so  dry  that  it  will  snap  when 
bent  between  the  fingers.  But  the  killing-  is  a 
long,  painstaking  and  watchful,  though  gen- 
tle, process.  Temperature,  the  humidity  and 
moisture  in  the  air  inside,  and  to  some  extent 
outside,  of  the  barn,  and  most  of  all  ventila- 
tion :  these  are  the  leading  factors. 

Delicate  as  it  is  in  some  respects,  the  to- 
bacco plant  has  wonderful  vitality.  Parts  of  the 
leaf  will,  under  favorable  conditions,  continue 
to  "live"  in  the  curing  barn  for  several  weeks. 

Let  us  follow  this  march  of  death.  It  is  the 
outer  edges  of  the  leaf  that  are  the  first  to  suc- 
cumb from  loss  of  moisture,  and  the  unused 
portion  of  the  food  supply  is  withdrawn  to- 
ward the  midrib,  which  is  the  last  part  of  the 
leaf  to  die.  Then  the  food  materials  pass  into 
the  stalk  to  keep  this  alive  and  to  supply 
nourishment  to  the  young  "suckers,"  which, 
even  during  the  slow  death  in  the  curing  barn, 
keep  up  the  fight  to  the  end  in  their  persistent 
effort  to  perform  their  function:  the  function 
of  reproduction. 

These  often  hold  out  for  many  weeks  before 
they  are  starved  to  death;  but,  because  the 
stalk  of  the  "bright"  cigarette  tobacco  has 
been  slit  open  almost  its  entire  length,  and  be- 
cause it  is  always  cured  by  artificial  heat,  this 
struggle  is  very  much  shorter  in  the  case  of 


36  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

such   tobacco   than   it  is    in  other   varieties. 

The  next  problem  that  presents  itself  to  the 
expert  is  one  of  color.  As  soon  as  the  leaf  has 
become  yellow,  the  drying  must  be  so  regu- 
lated as  to  prevent  any  further  change  in  the 
shade  of  the  leaf,  and  this  ''fixing  the  color" 
stage  is  a  critical  period  that  requirers  the 
closest  attention.  When  the  leaf  tissue  dies, 
all  moisture  remaining  in  the  leaf  comes  to  the 
surface  and  unless  removed  will  turn  the  leaf 
a  reddish-brown.  That  is  called  "sponging," 
and  is  undesirable  in  cigarette  tobacco. 

Here  again  the  curer's  watchfulness  must 
not  be  permitted  to  relax.  The  temperature  of 
the  barn  must  never  fall,  and  extreme  care 
is  necessary  to  avoid  deterioration.  Any  too 
rapid  advance,  and  any  carelessness  in  venti- 
lation are  likely  to  produce  trouble  technic- 
ally known  as  "scalding"  or  "splotching," 
which  result  in  bluish-black  discolorations 
that  are  not  to  be  tolerated. 

But  now  suppose  all  these  precautions  taken, 
and  all  these  dangers  safely  passed — the  to- 

.     .  bacco  is  cured.    What  is  the  next 

Stripping         step  jn  the  Iong  journey  Of  the 

c"ld  .  tobacco  to  the  consumer?    It  is 

Sorting  the  stripping  and  sorting  of  the 

the  Leaves       leayes 

Once  the  tobacco  is  properly  cured,  the 
plants  may  be  taken,  as  soon  as  the  farmer 
pleases,  from  the  laths  on  which  they  have 
been  suspended,  and  the  leaves  then  stripped 
from  their  stalks.  There  is  only  the  weather 
to  be  consulted.  It  is  at  this  stage,  immed- 
iately upon  the  completion  of  the  cure,  that 


HARVESTING  AND  CURING  37 


the  planter  anxiously  watches  for  a  "tobacco 
season,"  for  the  stripping  must  not  be  done 
until  after  damp  weather  has  prevailed  long 
enough  for  the  leaf  to  become  pliable,  so  that 
it  may  be  handled  freely  without  breaking. 

Tobacco  in  that  condition  is  said  to  be  "in 
case,"  or  "in  order" — in  "farmer's  order"  as 
distinguished  from  "purchaser's  order," which 
comes  later.  Weather  well  adapted  to  bring- 
ing the  leaves  into  "order"  following  the  cur- 
ing is  what  has  become  known  in  the  tobacco 
country  as  a  "tobacco  season"  or,  in  some  lo- 
calities, as  a  "tobacco  storm" ;  but  even  though 
wet  weather  prevails,  the  leaves  will  not 
"com?  in  order"  if  the  temperature  is  very  low. 

The  plants  have  now  been  lowered  from 
the  poles  and  removed  to  the  packing  house, 
where  they  are  piled  in  heaps  with  all  the  tips 
turned  inward  and  overlapping  to  prevent  the 
leaves  from  drying  out.  It  is  in  this  "pack 
house"  that  the  leaves  are  stripped  from  the 
stalks  at  the  convenience  of  the  owner  and  of 
the  weather. 

After  stripping,  the  leaves  are  sorted  and 
the  different  lengths,  qualities  and  colors  tied 
into  bundles,  called  "hands,"  weighing  about 
half  a  pound  each.  A  leaf  is  used  to  bind  the 
bases  together,  and  all  leaves  that  are  in  any 
way  damaged  are  thrown  out  and  only  the 
highest  quality  taken  for  cigarette  purposes. 

Next  the  "hands"  are  arranged  in  piles 
called  "bulks,"  on  an  elevated  platform. 
These  "bulks"  are  built  by  laying  the  "hands" 
in  two  rows,  all  the  butts  outward  and  the  tips 
slightly  overlapping.  Then,  to  prevent  the  to- 


38  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

bacco  from  drying  out,  the  "bulk"  is  covered 
with  oilcloth  or  other  suitable  material. 

Now  the  tobacco  is  ready  to  be  taken  to 
market.  But  until  it  is  taken  from  the  packing 
house  and  loaded  into  wagons  to  be  hauled 
away,  there  is  another  period  of  anxious 
watching.  The  piles  of  bundles  must  be  saved 
from  the  heat  which  is  likely  to  develop  if 
the  leaf  was  too  moist  when  packed.  If  heat- 
ing does  occur,  the  piles  have  to  be  torn  down, 
the  bundles  shaken  out  and  the  piles  rebuilt. 

The  farmer's  part  is  now  nearly  finished. 
All  that  he  awaits  is  a  favorable  market  for 
the  product  that  he  has  been 
From  anxiously  and  skillfully  bring- 

tarmer  to  ing  to  perfection  for  the  better 
Auction  part  Q£  a  vear;  and>  jn  the  cage 

of  this  "bright"  yellow  tobacco, 
he  never  has  long  to  wait  provided  his  work 
has  been  successful,  since  there  is  always 
a  demand  that  exceeds  the  supply  of  the 
better  grades.  So  the  raw  material  begins  its 
travels  by  an  early  start  to  the  farmer's 
market  place,  in  other  words,  to  one  of  the  to- 
bacco auction  warehouses  that  are  scattered 
throughout  the  tobacco  belts. 

These  auctions  are  among  the  most  pictur-' 
esque  features  of  Southern  life.  For  the  most 
part,  the  warehouses  in  which  they  are  held 
are  at  convenient  points;  but  sometimes  a 
farmer  will  have  to  make  a  four  days'  journey 
to  reach  a  warehouse  where  the  quality  of  his 
tobacco  is  known  and  appreciated  and  will, 
consequently,  bring  the  highest  price.  Many 
of  the  old-fashioned,  boatlike  tobacco  wagons 


HARVESTING  AND  CURING  39 

once  entirely  peculiar  to  this  region  are  still  in 
use,  and  a  familiar  winter  sight  is  the  lines  of 
these  vehicles  going  to  market. 

The  element  of  the  picturesque  continues  in 
the  warehouses  themselves,  with  the  auc- 
tioneers repeating  the  bids  in  sing-song  as 
they  pass  from  pile  to  pile  of  tobacco  followed 
by  groups  of  buyers,  and  knocking  down  each 
separate  pile  to  the  highest  bidder.  The  bright 
leaf  that  goes  into  our  most  popular  cigarettes, 
even  those  retailing  at  ten  and  five  cents,  is 
always  among  the  lots  that  go  at  the  highest 
figures. 

Buyers  for  the  different  brands  of  cigarettes 
attend  these  auctions  daily  and  display  a  fine 
skill  in  selecting  just  the  kind  of  tobacco  that 
will  maintain  the  distinctive  flavor  of  their 
particular  brands.  So  expert  are  they  that 
they  can  tell  by  a  glance  from  what  district  a 
pile  of  tobacco  came — not  only  from  what 
county,  but  often  from  what  particular  farm. 
They  see  the  tobacco  as  it  is  unloaded,  and 
again  in  the  piles,  and  they  have,  for  the  most 
part  long  before  the  bidding  begins,  made  up 
their  minds  as  to  just  what  lots  they  want  to 
buy. 

The  sing-song  of  the  auctioneer  continues 
until  the  early  winter  twilight  has  fallen.  The 
old  wagons,  empty  now,  begin  to  jolt  home- 
ward. The  auctioneer  is  silent.  The  buyers 
are  directing  porters  to  gatlier  their  purchases 
together  for  shipment.  Nature  has  done  her 
utmost  with  the  tobacco ;  the  farmer  has  done 
his:  processes  of  another  sort  are  already  be- 
ginning their  labors. 


CHAPTER  III 

TOBACCO  STORAGE  AND  BLENDING 

Four  or  Five  Years'  Labor  in  Each  Cigarette — Business  Makes 

South  Prosperous — Prizing  into  Hogsheads  for  Storage 

— Mellowed  by  Two  "Sweats"  Each  Year — Blending 

of  Crops  Makes  Uniform  Quality — Importance 

of  Large  Capital  in  Business. 

MAN  first  created  civilization  and  then 
became  its  creature.    The  result  once 
achieved,    the    means    is    forgotten. 
Few  have  any  conception  of  the  processes 
that  go  to  the  making  of  the  most  familiar  ob- 
jects of  our  daily  life.   Ask,  for  instance,  the 
average  citizen  how  chocolates  are  made,  and 
he  will  say: 

"Chocolates?  Oh,  it's  perfectly '"  simple. 
They're  made  in  a  big  factory  where  they  mix 
a  lot  of  sugar,  flour  and  cream  together,  chop 
it  into  little  pieces  and  pour  chocolate  over, 
them  while  they  are  sticky." 

Ask  him  how  pins  are  manufactured,  and  he 
will  answer: 

"Why,  by  pushing  wire  into  a  machine  that 
turns  it  into  pins." 

Ask  him  if  he  knows  how  cigarettes  are 
made  and  he  will  say: 

"Sure  I  do.  They're  made  by  machinery.' 
A  lot  of  chopped  up  tobacco  is  fed  into  a  big 
machine  operated  by  a  girl  sitting  on  a  stool, 
and  the  machine  automatically  wraps  the  to- 
bacco in  paper  of  the  right  length — and  that's 
all  there  is  to  it." 

40 


TOBACCO  STORAGE  AND  BLENDING       -      41 

x 

In  other  words,  the  average  citizen  has  no 
conception  of  the  infinite  amount  of  care  and 
labor  that  is  needed  to  bring  the  raw  products 
of  the  chocolate  candy  or  pin  industries  up  to 
the  manufacturing  stage.  He  has  no  con- 
ception of  the  processes  of  any  industry  save 
that  in  which  he  happens  to  be  personally  en- 
gaged. 

And  so  this  same  average  citizen,  as  he 
smokes  his  cigarette  while  attending  to  his 
more  or  less  important  affairs,  does  not  realize 
that  the  making  of  that  cigarette  in  those  ma- 
chines of  which  he  has  such  a  crude  idea  is 
only  one  of  many  operations  in  a  long  succes- 
sion of  carefully  planned  and  painstakingly 
executed  processes  which,  in  the  case  of  the 
standard  cigarettes  that  today  are  sold  by 
the  billions,  extend  over  a  protracted  period, 

It  takes  from  three  to  five  years  to  make  a 
cigarette.  That  is  to  say  that  every  cigarette 
you  smoke,  even  the  two  for  a  -,  .... 

cent  kind,  represents  an  invest-  £™  ?***** 
ment  of  labor  for  three,  four  or  Years.  L°bor 
five  years,  and,  in  the  aggregate,  *n  *™ 

millions  of  capital  tied  up  for  Clgar 
that  time.  Indeed,  the  actual  making  of  the 
cigarette  in  the  factory  where  the  filler  and 
wrappers  are  combined  in  the  finished  product 
is  really  but  a  minor  process  in  the  long  line 
of  operations. 

What  counts  most,  and  what  no  invention 
can  ever  accomplish,  is  the  careful,  expert 
preparation  and  the  skillful  blending  of  the 
tobacco.  No  machine  on  earth  could  possibly 
make  a  good  cigarette  out  of  poor  tobacco; 


42  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

and  it  may  as  well  be  added  that  no  machine 
in  the  United  States  makes  cigarettes  out  of 
any  but  good  tobacco,  popular  rumor  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding.  For  as  was  stated 
in  a  preceding  chapter,  there  are  good  reasons, 
other  than  keen  commercial  competition, 
why  nothing  but  pure  tobacco  is  used  in  ciga- 
rettes, and  the  difference  in  quality  is  simply 
a  question  of  the  kinds  of  tobacco  used. 

It  is  this  process  of  blending  that  we  have 
now  to  consider;  but  it  will  be  necessary  first 
briefly  to  trace  the  tobacco  from  the  auction 
warehouse,  where  we  recently  left  it,  through 
its  stage  of  "reordering,"  since,  without  that 
reordering,  the  best  of  blending  might  very 
well  be  of  no  avail. 

No  sooner  has  the  leaf  passed  into  the  hands 
of  the  agents  of  the  various  cigarette  manu- 
facturers than  there  begins  a  series  of  most 
important  steps,  calling  for  a  wide  range  of 
technical  skill  in  the  perfecting  of  the  raw  ma- 
terial, that  treatment  of  the  tobacco  in  storage 
which  gives  to  it  the  flavor,  the  mellowness 
and  the  sweetness  that  come  with  age. 

Those  towns  and  cities  where  are  estab- 
lished the  tobacco  storage  warehouses  in 
.  which  the  next  step  is  taken  are 

the  real  commercial  centers  of 

of* i  j  the  South.  They  are  a  prize 
Southland  worth  any  town»s  fighting  for, 
Prosperous  and  there  js  much  stdfe  among 

municipalities  to  secure  them,  for  they  are 
constantly  building  up  into  prosperous  and 
bustling  cities  many  places  in  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina  and  Virginia. 


TOBACCO  STORAGE  AND  BLENDING  43 

Often  from  15,000  to  50,000  pounds  of  the 
cigarette  type  of  tobacco  are  sold  in  a  single 
warehouse  in  a  day,  and  in  some  centers  there 
are  several  of  these  warehouses.  The  tre- 
mendous sales  during  the  season,  all  "spot 
cash  transactions,"  distribute  immense  sums 
of  money  to  the  planters  of  the  vicinity,  and 
the  community's  general  business  reaps  the 
benefits. 

In  the  older  districts  of  the  "old  belt"  and 
the  "new  golden  belt"  have  sprung  up  To- 
bacco Boards  of  Trade,  banks,  and  all  the  ap- 
purtenances to  a  large  and  thriving  commerce. 
Nor  is  that  all.  Of  no  less  importance  to  the 
small  markets  than  the  auction  warehouses 
themselves  are  the  complement  of  "prizing" 
houses,  and  what  these  are  to  the  smaller 
markets,  the  redrying  plants  have  become  to 
the  large  ones. 

It  is  in  the  "prizing"  houses  of  the  smaller 
markets  that  the  tobacco  is  put  into  hogsheads 
to  ship  to  the  redrying  plants  in  the  large  cen- 
ters. 

Immediately  after  a  sale,  the  raw  mate- 
rial is  removed  from  the  auction  warehouse 
in  flat-bottom  baskets,  each  holding  from  100 
to  400  pounds,  and  in  these  it  is  hauled  to 
the  "prizing"  house,  or  to  the  redrying  plant 
as  the  case  may  be.  The  word  "prizing"  re- 
fers to  the  final  act  of  prizing,  or  pressing  the 
tobacco  into  the  hogsheads  in  which  it  is  sent 
to  the  storage  warehouses  to  be  kept  until  it  is 
thoroughly  "aged." 

First,  there  is  the  process  of  reconditioning, 


44  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

or  reordering  the  tobacco,  or  as  it  is  often 
p      .  termed,    redrying.      When    the 

totting  planter  delivers  his  crop,  it  is 

lobacco  said  to  be  «in  order>»  or  «in  con. 

dition>"  which  means  ^ai  i1t  con" 

tains  what  he  considers  the 
proper  amount  of  moisture  after  the  curing 
process.  But  this  "farmer's  order"  never  is 
the  order  that  suits  the  purposes  of  a  pur- 
chaser. Therefore,  the  first  thing  to  be  done 
in  the  prizing  house  is  to  take  out  the  farmer's 
order  and  put  the  purchaser's  order  in.  It  is 
then  said  to  be  reconditioned,  reordered,  or  re- 
dried. 

The  purpose  of  this  is  at  once  evident.  It 
is  to  take  out  the  greenness,  or  "newness"  of 
the  tobacco  and  to  put  it  into  proper  condition 
to  age,  or  sweat,  without  damage.  The  ma- 
chinery for  doing  it — or  the  machine,  rather, 
for  it  is  accomplished  by  one  monster  mechan- 
ical device — has  been  brought  to  a  high  degree 
of  efficiency.  The  most  modern  of  these  re- 
drying  machines  is  a  sort  of  huge  double  com- 
partment oven,  one  hundred  and  forty  feet 
long,  twenty-two  feet  wide  and  twelve  feet 
high,  having  within  it  an  endless  wire  belt 
which  revolves  over  rollers  placed  at  either 
end.  The  interior  of  the  machine  is  divided 
into  five  chambers,  or  compartments. 

The  process  begins  by  taking  the  tobacco 
from  the  baskets  and  hanging  it  upon  sticks, 
which  are  automatically  fed  into  the  machine. 
The  leaves  are  then  carried  through  from  one 
chamber  to  the  next,  and  held  in  each  as  long 
as  necessary.  In  the  first  chamber  there  is  a 


TOBACCO  STORAGE  AND  BLENDING  45 

heat  of  130  degrees,  in  the  second  150  degrees, 
and  in  the  third  the  temperature  reaches  170 
degrees.  By  the  time  the  leaves  have  been 
carried  through  this  hottest  chamber  the  to- 
bacco is  bone  dry.  In  other  words,  all  of  the 
"farmer's  order"  has  besn  removed.  Then  the 
tobacco  passes  to  the  cooling  chamber,  where 
the  temperature  is  as  low  as  90  degrees.  From 
that  it  goes  into  the  last  chamber,  where  it  en- 
counters the  live  steam  that  puts  it  into  such 
"order"  as  is  required  by  the  manufacturer  of 
the  particular  cigarette  for  which  it  is  in- 
tended. A  full  hour  is  the  average  time  re- 
quired by  the  whole  process. 

Each  of  these  modern  redrying  machines,1 
which  now  are  in  quite  general  use,  redries 
and  reorders  from  40,000  to  70,000  pounds  of 
tobacco  leaves  in  a  day.  The  old  air,  or  venti- 
lation method  took  from  forty  to  ninety  days 
to  accomplish  what  one  of  these  machines 
does  in  about  sixty  minutes.  This  is  another 
instance  of  replacing  the  crude  primitive 
methods  of  hand  work  by  modern  mechanical 
devices  adequately  directed,  a  change  that  is 
everywhere  characteristic  of  American  enter- ; 
prise. 

Once  the  tobacco  has  passed  through  the  re- 
drying  machines,  it  is  taken  off  the  sticks, 
packed  into  hogsheads  and  then       t<D  .  .     „ 
"prized,"  or  pressed,  by  a  power-         '  rtz™8 
press  made  for  the  purpose,  into         *°  *?°f s~ 
the  hogsheads  in  which  it  is  to         he°~*  fo 
be  kept  in  the  storage  houses.  rage 

The  hogsheads  are  made  from  kiln-dried) 
Southern  pine,  a  soft  wood  that  makes  a  suffi-, 


46  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

ciently  porous,  sweet  container  excellently 
adapted  to  keeping  the  tobacco  in  perfect  con- 
dition during  the  aging  process.  To  pack  the 
leaves,  there  is  put  upon  each  hogshead  a  pres- 
sure of  from  1,000  to  1,100  pounds. 

Thus  reordered  and  prized,  the  tobacco  is 
now  ready  for  storage.  Much  of  it  is  kept 
where  it  is  prized ;  but  where  the  storage  facil- 
ities are  inadequate,  as  is  often  the  case,  the 
hogsheads  are  shipped  to  the  greater  storage 
warehouses,  notably  those  in  Richmond  and 
Danville,  Virginia,  and  in  Durham,  North  Car- 
olina, which  doubtless  are  the  largest;  ciga- 
rette tobacco  clearing  house  cities  in  the  coun- 
try. It  is  best  that  the  tobacco  should  age,  or 
sweat,  in  approximately  the  same  climate  in 
which  it  is  grown. 

Ventilation  is  even  more,  necessary  at  this 
stage  than  in  curing.  Consequently,  the  stor- 
age warehouses  are  all  well  ventilated  and 
many  of  them  are  simply  vast  open  sheds  with 
dry  floors,  the  more  modern  being  built  of 
metal  and  concrete,  in  which  the  hogsheads 
are  piled  two  or  three  deep.  Even  in  the  fre- 
quent brick  warehouses  there  are  numerous 
windows  which,  when  opened,  allow  a  clean 
sweep  of  the  pure  air  to  circulate  around  the 
valuable  stock.  In  none  is  any  artificial  heat 
applied.  It  has  been  found  best  to  depend 
solely  upon  the  climate  for  this  process. 

"Process"  is  the  proper  word,  for  one  must 
not  get  the  impression  that  this  storage  is 
merely  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the  tobacco 
until  it  is  needed  for  manufacturing  into  ciga- 
rettes. Just  as  nature — Mother  Earth  and 


METHOD  OF  "PRIZING"  DOMESTIC  TOBACCO 

««  t£jF»f»**  is  redried  and  "reordered"  the  tobacco  is  firmly  pressed,  or 
prized,  into  hogsheads  by  a  hydraulic  press,  as  shown  in  the  top  picture. 
Ihe  bottom  picture  shows  how  the  leaves,  tied  into  "hands,"  each  weighing 
about  half  a  pound,  are  neatly  pressed  into  layers.  In  these  hogsheads, 
averaging  a  little  over  1,000  pounds,  the  tobacco  is  sent  to  warehouses  and 
stored  from  three  to  five  years,  being  mellowed  by  two  natural  "sweats" 
each  year. 


TOBACCO  STORAGE  AND  BLENDING  47 

Father  Sun — "sweetened"  the  tobacco  during 
the  growing  in  the  rare,  pure  air,  so  here,  in 
the  warehouses,  nature  again  takes  up  her 
task  of  "mellowing"  the  leaves  by  age — or,  as 
the  tobacco  man  calls  it,  "sweating." 

That  is  exactly  what  the  tobacco  in  the 
hogsheads    does — it    sweats.      As    has    been 
said  elsewhere,  no  other  plant         ....        . 
that  grows  is  so  susceptible  to        Mellowe* 
soil  conditions  as  is  tobacco,  and        €€£*     ™?9 
by  the  same  token,  the  leaves  of      E  ™e™s 
no  other  plant  are  more  sensitive         a 
to  climatic  changes  while  in  storage.    There- 
fore, the  tobacco  sweats,  and  when  it  sweats  it 
becomes  limp  and  soft.    It  goes  through  two 
of  these   sweats   each   year — in   the   spring 
when  winter   is  changing  to  summer,   and 
again  in  the  fall  when  summer  is  turning  to 
winter. 

The  result  is  a  thorough  moistening.  The 
sweat  permeates  every  one  of  the  tens  of 
thousands  of  leaves  in  each  hogshead.  This  is 
an  inexorable  law.  So  susceptible  is  the  to- 
bacco to  these  two  great  climatic  changes  that 
if  it  were  stored  in  the  strongest  safe  and  the 
doors  of  the  safe  never  were  opened,  the  leaves 
would  go  through  a  sweat  each  spring  and 
fall. 

In  the  interim  between  the  sweats  the  en- 
tire contents  of  the  hogsheads  dry  out.  By 
the  "age"  of  tobacco  is  meant  the  number  of 
sweats  to  which  it  has  been  subjected. 

"From  three  to  five  years'  imprisonment 
in  the  warehouse"  is  the  sentence  that  is  im- 
posed upon  each  and  every  crop  of  tobacco 


48  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

leaf  that  goes  into  the  manufacture  of  Ameri- 
can cigarettes.  That  is  to  say  that  there  are 
from  three  to  five  crops  as  many  years  old  con- 
tinuously being  mellowed  by  age  in  the  ware- 
houses after  they  have  been  sweetened  by 
nature  in  the  fields. 

This  is  the  reason  why  the  tobacco  in  our 
cigarettes,  recognized  as  the  best  in  the  world, 
is  temptingly  and  honestly  referred  to  in  ad- 
vertisements as  "sweet"  and  "mellow."  The 
phrase  is  just.  In  fact,  the  incarceration  could 
continue  much  longer,  for  tobacco  that  has 
been  properly  cured  and  favorably  stored  will 
keep  practically  indefinitely,  and  will  go  right 
on  sweating  twice  each  year  as  regularly  as 
the  two  major  seasons  change;  but,  for  all 
ordinary  purposes,  three  or  four  years  suffice 
to  bring  the  leaf  to  perfection. 

When  such  perfection  has  been  secured,  the 

tobacco  is  taken  from  the  hogsheads  and  re- 

.  conditioned     by     again     being 

Removing        passed  through  live  steam  re- 

«££«**&»  i."  duced  by  cold  water  going 

t*i    if      throu^h  atomizers,  and  put  in 
condition     for     stemming,     or 
"stripping,"  a  trade  which  gives  employment 
to  many  thousands  of  people  the  year  round. 

The  phrase  "to  stem"  means  to  remove  the 
midrib,  or  "backbone,"  of  the  leaf.  This  is 
sometimes  done  by  hand,  but  more  often  by 
machines  operated  under  the  guidance  of 
skilled  laborers.  By  the  removal  of  the  coarse 
stern,  or  midrib,  the  leaf  is  separated  into 
two  parts  technically  called  "strips."  *At  the 


TOBACCO  STORAGE  AND  BLENDING  49 

same  time  the  coarser  and  tougher  veins  rad- 
iating from  the  midrib  are  removed. 

Until  now  there  has  remained  in  the  tobacco 
leaves  a  certain  amount  of  sand  and  clay.  A 
good  deal  of  this  dust  clung  to  the  plants  at 
harvest.  Some  has  come  out  in  the  various 
handlings  during  the  curing,  more  in  the  auc- 
tion warehouses,  and  still  more  in  the  redry- 
ing  plants.  But  it  is  necessary  that  every  par- 
ticle be  removed,  and  it  is  during  this  recondi- 
tioning and  stemming  process — one  portion  of 
which  includes  the  passing  of  the  tobacco  over 
"shaker"  sieves — that  the  remaining  sand  is 
shaken  out,  and  other  foreign  substances  dis- 
lodged and  removed,  so  that  there  is  nothing 
left  when  the  actual  assembling  of  the  ciga- 
rette begins  but  pure  tobacco,  mellow  and 
clean. 

In  the  process  of  making  the  strips  the  loss 
of  weight  by  the  removal  of  the  midrib  is  from 
twenty-five  to  thirty  per  cent.,  and  you  will  un- 
derstand what  that  means  when  you  remem- 
ber that  this  "bright"  yellow  cigarette  tobac- 
co commands  the  highest  market  price  of  all 
tobaccos.  In  this  same  process,  too,  practically 
all  of  the  sap  left  after  preceding  processes 
(which,  to  be  sure,  is  not  much)  passes  away. 

It  is  a  good  time  to  call  the  roll  and  count 
the  missing.  Submit  the  cigarette  tobacco  at 
this  stage  of  its  preparation  to  chemical  an- 
alysis, and- you  will  find  that  there  has  also 
vanished  the  major  portion  of  the  nicotine 
originally  inherent  in  the  plant. 

Curing,  warehousing,  the  heat  treatment, 
the  sweating,  the  passage  of  the  years — these 


50  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

things  combine  until,  as  will  be  shown  in  a 
later  chapter,  the  amount  of  nicotine  left  for 
the  finished  article  is  relatively  unimportant. 

This  loss  is  significant.  If,  as  in  the  cultiva- 
tion and  handling  of  the  sugar-beet  where  the 
prime  object  is  the  production  and  the  reten- 
tion of  sugar,  the  prime  object  in  tobacco  cul- 
ture were  the  production  of  nicotine,  then  an 
increase  in  nicotine  might  easily  be  forced  by 
fertilization.  But  it  never  is.  Good  tobacco  is 
not  made  by  nicotine  alone,  any  more  than 
good  wine  is  made  by  alcohol  alone.  Flavor 
and  aroma  are  the  two  important  elements. 
Some  cigarette  tobaccos  famed  for  their  excel- 
lence contain  almost  no  nicotine,  and  upon 
nicotine  neither  the  excellence  of  the  leaf  nor 
its  smoking  quality  is  dependent.  Thus  early 
is  disproved  a  popular  fallacy. 

That,  however,  is  matter  for  future  and  de- 
tailed consideration.  What  here  concerns  us 
is  the  preparation  of  cigarette  tobacco  for  the 
factory,  and  we  have  now  reached  the  most 
important  of  all  the  various  stages  that  the  to- 
bacco passes  through  on  its  journey  of  years 
from  seed  to  smoker.  This  is  the  blending 
process,  and  here  it  is  that  skilled  workman- 
ship counts  to  the  greatest  degree  in  all  our 
story. 

Since  it  is  the  blending  of  the  different 
crops,  which  have  been  selected  with  such 
ni  j*  f  care  anc*  have  been  stored  for 
~  "£  L  Years> that  enables  the  manuf ac- 
Crops  Makes  turer  of  American  cigarettes  to 
Uniform  keep  the  quaiity  of  his  product 

Quality  always  uniform,  and  since  it  is 

because  of  the  blending  of  several  crops  that 


TOBACCO  STORAGE  AND  BLENDING  51 

cigarette  quality  can  always  be  evenly  main- 
tained, it  is  obvious  that  the  employer  cannot 
afford  to  employ  a  poor  grade  of  labor  at  the 
tasks  of  assorting  and  blending  the  great  vari- 
ety of  tobacco  leaves. 

Consequently  none  but  the  most  careful 
workers,  those  selected  for  their  superior 
skill,  are  employed  in  these  departments. 

Good  sight  is  necessary;  individual  atten- 
tion is  a  requisite,  and  a  correct  judgment  as 
to  qualities  of  leaf  is  paramount.  Failure  on 
the  part  of  the  employee — carelessness,  inef- 
ficiency, inattention — spells  ultimate  disaster 
to  the  employer.  If  he  is  actuated  by  no  higher 
motive  than  the  primal  one  of  self  preserva- 
tion, the  cigarette  manufacturer  must  here  use 
only  the  best  material,  the  highest  skill,  the 
greatest  care. 

For  the  cigarette,  in  this  vitally  important 
matter  of  blending,  is  sul  generis.  The  tobacco 
that  goes  into  cigars,  for  instance,  requires  no 
such  blending  of  crops.  That  is  the  reason 
that  the  cigarette  smoker  can  be  sure  of  hav- 
ing his  taste  gratified,  and  that  his  favorite 
brand  of  cigarettes  always  will  be  of  the  same 
flavor  and  general  quality,  while  the  smoker 
of  any  brand  of  cigar  cannot.  It  is  this 
maintained  quality — a  maintenance  due  to  the 
blending  of  crops — that,  added  to  the  conven- 
ience of  the  cigarette,  is  really  the  largest  fac- 
tor in  the  phenomenal  increase  of  cigarette 
smoking. 

Nor  is  it  only  the  tobaccos  of  different  years 


52  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

that  are  blended  for  the  cigarette.  In  order  to 
procure  the  precise  flavor  needed 
/mpoi  Knee  for  a  given  brand,  tobaccos  of  dif- 
of  Large  ferent  grades  must  be  blended, 
Capita/  an(j  tobaccos  from  different  sec- 

tions of  the  yellow  tobacco  dis- 
tricts. In  this  respect  the  larger  manufacturer 
has  a  clear  advantage  over  the  smaller,  be- 
cause of  better  facilities  for  keeping  on  hand  a 
big  stock  of  tobacco  for  excellent  blending. 

Indeed,  since  the  coming  of  large  capital  to 
the  cigarette  industry,  the  general  quality  of 
cigarettes  has  been  improved.  Only  the  in- 
vestment of  much  money — and  it  runs  into 
many  millions  of  dollars  a  year — permits  the 
manufacturer  of  cigarettes  on  a  large  scale  to 
carry  over  crops  in  storage  from  season  to  sea- 
son and  thus  keep  up  the  standard  of  the 
tobacco  used  in  his  product. 

Moreover,  the  crop  of  one  season  is  often 
vastly  inferior  to  that  of  another,  so  that  un- 
less the  manufacturer  has  sufficient  capital  to 
enable  him  to  keep  two,  three  or  more  crops  on 
hand— or  even  to  skip  entirely  the  crop  of  a 
particularly  bad  season — he  cannot  be  sure  of 
maintaining  uniform  quality  in  his  cigarettes. 

Few  smokers,  carelessly  puffing  their  ciga- 
rettes, realize  the  years  of  labor  that  have 
gone  to  the  making;  nor  do  they  surmise  what 
great  skill  and  vast  capital  are  represented 
in  the  fragrant,  curling  smoke.  Just  so,  not 
one  in  a  thousand  appreciates  the  fact  that, 
with  each  inhalation,  he  is  drawing  upon  a 
small  portion  of  about  three  crops  of  tobacco. 

There  is  as  much  distinction  in  the  "vint- 


TOBACCO  STORAGE  AND  BLENDING  53 

age"  of  tobacco  as  there  is  in  the  vintage  of 
wine.  Everybody  knows  that  the  grapes  of  a 
certain  district  in  France  make,  in  favorable 
seasons,  vintages  that  connoisseurs  proclaim 
the  aristocrats  among  wines.  In  the  same 
manner  do  particularly  favorable  growing 
and  maturing  seasons  in  certain  districts  of 
the  "old"  and  "new"  tobacco  belts  make  a 
superior  quality  of  cigarette  leaf. 

Large  capital  enables  the  manufacturers  not 
only  to  pay  the  highest  price  for  this  cream  of 
the  crop  which  they  need  for  maintaining  their 
standards,  but  also  to  store  this  tobacco  of  the 
rarest  "vintage"  in  such  quantities  as  to  be  al- 
ways available  until  equaled  by  a  subsequent 
crop. 

For  stored  it  is  again,  this  now  perfected 
product.  Once  out  of  the  warehouse,  blending 
accomplished,  it  goes  back  into  hogsheads  and 
bondage,  ready  for  shipment  to  the  factories 
when  needed,  but  likely  to  stay  a  long  time  on 
the  waiting  list  before  the  hour  strikes  for  its 
conversion  into  the  form  in  which  the  smoker 
first  makes  its  acquaintance.  Before  that 
introduction  occurs  there  is  another  side  of  the 
industry  to  be  inspected — and  that  is  a  side  de- 
serving a  chapter  to  itself. 


CHAPTER  IV, 

PREPARING  FOR  MANUFACTURE 

First  Process  in  a  Cigarette  Factory— Where  Turkish  Tobacco 

Comes  From— Why  Best  Turkish  Cigarettes  are  Made 

in    America— Overcoming    Dishonest    Native 

Packing — Blending— Turks    and    Greeks 

Employed  in  Factories. 

SEED  selection  and  culture;  leaf  selection 
and  curing,  reordering,  aging,  stem- 
ming, blending  and  repacking!  Surely, 
says  the  layman,  the  cigarette  tobacco  must 
now  be  perfect;  surely  it  is  ready  to  pass  di- 
rectly into  the  paper  and  thence  to  my  own 
lips. 

Not  so.  The  manufacturer  has  a  better  care 
of  your  comfort  than  you  have,  and  in  his  fac- 
tory, when  the  tobacco  reaches  it  from  the 
warehouse  after  blending,  he  exercises  the 
maximum  of  painstaking  energy.  There  he 
can,  and  does,  renew  the  processes  of  purifica- 
tion and  perfection;  and  there  he  can,  and 
does,  go  about  this  task  with  an  attention  to 
detail  that  makes  the  preceding  regimen- 
important  and  expertly  managed  though  it  in- 
variably is — seem  crude  and  experimental. 

Since,  of  course,  these  last  steps  are  but  ac- 
centuated repetitions  of  steps  formerly  taken, 
one  example  will  suffice.  No  sooner  has  the 
"bright"  Southern  tobacco  reached  the  factory 
than  it  is  put  into  a  steam-room,  or  sweat- 
room,  as  it  usually  is  called,  and  kept  there  at 

54 


PREPARING  FOR  MANUFACTURE  55 

a  temperature  of  about  110  degrees  until  it  is 
in  a  condition  sufficiently  pliable  to  prevent 
its  breaking  while  being  handled. 

This  is  really  another  reconditioning,  or  re- 
ordering, of  the  tobacco  into  "factory  order"; 
and  there  are  more  "ordering"  processes  be- 
fore it  finally  reaches  the  cigarette  making 
machines — which  is  enough  to  show  that  the 
keeping  of  the  tobacco  in  good  condition,  or 
"order,"  is  the  master-key  to  the  success  of  the 
cigarette  manufacturers  .  whose  businesses 
have  grown  to  such  large  proportions  in  the 
United  States. 

Still  in  the  hogsheads  in  which  it  was  ship- 
ped from  Durham,  Richmond  or  any  of  the 
storage  warehouse  centers,  the  _,. 

domestic  tobacco  is  housed  in  the        p         Irf  * 
steam-room.      As    needed,    the        Process  m 
hogsheads    are    rolled  out  and     a  Clj,aretl 
opened  in  the  first  of  the  many 
rooms  through  which  the  tobacco  travels  in 
the  various  stages  of  its  journey  to  the  ciga* 
rette  making  machine. 

In  that  first  room  expert  workmen,  men  who 
have  been  judges  of  tobacco  quality  all  their 
mature  years,  open  the  hogsheads,  carefully 
examine  the  strips  and  remove  all  leaves  that 
are  too  dark,  or  are  in  any  way  not  up  to  stand- 
ard for  cigarettes.  All  hard  grades — that  is  to 
say,,  those  in  which  the  leaves  may  have  been 
firmly  matted  together — are  rendered  pliable 
and  put  into  proper  order  by  being  passed 
through  a  revolving  cylinder  in  which  there  is 
live  steam. 


56  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

You  will  recall  that  all  of  this  domestic  to- 
bacco is  blended  according  to  the  formulas  of 
the  different  brands  of  cigarettes  before  being 
shipped  to  the  factory.  Here,  after  the  harder 
strips  are  softened  by  passing  through  the  re- 
volving cylinder,  the  balance  of  the  blend  is 
mixed  with  them  and  the  leaves  are  put  into 
trucks,  soon  to  begin  their  journey  through 
the  many  factory  processes  by  which  the 
actual  cigarette  is  made. 

I  have  been  writing  chiefly  about  domestic 
cigarette  tobacco.  Now  it  is  fitting  that  I 
should  here  break  the  thread  of  my  narrative 
to  record  a  few  facts  about  Turkish  tobacco, 
which  has  become  of  late  years  so  important  a 
factor  in  the  cigarette  industry, 

Once  again  we  must  consult  our  histories. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  while  America  is 
A  .  the  birthplace  of  tobacco  and 

r  has  always  produced  the  greater 

+L  portion  of  the  world's  supply, 

tfu 


we  have  had  to  go  to  the  orient 

for  the  most  delicate  and  aroma- 
tic leaves  that  are  used  in  cigarette  manufac- 
ture. 

Only  a  short  while  after  the  discovery  of 
America,  traders  carried  the  seeds  of  the  new 
plant  to  all  known  parts  of  the  globe.  The 
Orient  received  them  gladly,  and  in  the  soil  of 
the  East  the  tobacco  lost  many  of  its  native 
characteristics  and  took  on  that  texture  and 
aroma  that  spell  excellence  in  the  cigarette 
smoking  of  today. 

At  the  outset  it  should,  however,  be  noted 


PREPARING  FOR  MANUFACTURE  57 

that  the  word  "Turkish"  as  applied  to  the  to- 
bacco of  the  Orient  is  something       w 
of  a  misnomer;  doubtless  one  of  rY- A 

those  misnomers  that  will  never  Jlu,r  s 
be  wholly  corrected.  Really,  this  -  'obaca 
tobacco  is  grown  not  only  in  the  Com 
present  Turkey,  but  also  in  the  old  Turkish 
provinces — Thrace,  Macedonia,  Thessaly. 
After  the  second  Balkan  War,  in  1913,  more 
than  a  third  of  this  tobacco  producing  terri- 
tory was  taken  from  Turkish  control,  but  there 
is  small  chance  that  the  tobacco  of  Macedonia 
or  its  adjacent  provinces  will  ever  be  called  by 
any  but  its  old  name ;  and,  at  all  events,  despite 
wars  and  changing  territorial  divisions,  the 
Turkish  tobacco  situation  is  never  altered  so 
far  as  the  American  cigarette  manufacturer, 
dealer  and  consumer  are  concerned.  Geo- 
graphically, at  least,  we  shall  continue  to  get 
our  supplies  from  the  former  sources. 

For  quite  another  reason,  the  term  "Egyp- 
tian cigarettes"  is  entirely  a  misnomer,  if  the 
inference  is  drawn  that  such  cigarettes  are 
made  fron  Egyptian  tobacco.  There  is  no 
such  product.  Ir  Egypt,  the  cultivation  of  to- 
.  bacco  is,  in  fact,  prohibited  by  law,  in  order  to 
protect  the  government's  large  revenue  from 
the  high  import  duties  on  raw  tobacco. 

A  great  many  cigarettes  are  manufactured 
in  Egypt  from  Turkish  tobacco,  and  the  term 
might  refer  to  them;  but  it  is  likely  that  the 
name  "Egyptian"  is  perpetuated  mainly  be- 
cause the  oval  shape  in  which  practically  all 
Turkish  cigarettes  are  now  made  originated 
in  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs. 


58  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Here  in  America,  it  should  also  be  pointed 
out,  we  have  on  sale  two  kinds  of  Turkish  (or 
Egyptian)  cigarettes.  These  are  the  import- 
ed and  the  domestic.  The  former  are  ciga- 
rettes made  abroad  and  brought  here;  the  lat- 
ter are  cigarettes  made  in  our  own  factories 
from  Turkish  tobacco.  Which  is  the  better 
sort? 

The  cigarette  is,  as  we  have  seen,  largely 

dependent  on  the  taste  of  the  individual  smok- 

.  ,   er,  but  in  this  case  there  are  good 

Best  Turkish  reasons  why  the  smoker  should 

&*<*"***•  prefer  the  domestic  brands.  One 
Are  Made  of  these  rea3ons  is  that  large 

m  America  capital  enables  the  buying  and 
storage  of  the  cream  of  the  crops  year  after 
year. 

Another  reason  is  that  all  the  blending  of 
the  many  varieties  of  Turkish  tobacco  is  done 
here,  and  it  is  in  our  country  that  the  art 
of  blending  tobacco  has  reached  its  best 
standard. 

A  third  and  most  important  reason  is  that, 
when  manufactured  here,  cigarettes  reach 
smokers  in  the  freshest  possible  condition, 
with  none  of  the  fragrance,  the  rare  aroma 
that  gives  distinction  to  Turkish  tobacco, 
missing. 

Tobacco  improves  in  bulk,  but  dries  and 
loses  its  excellence  when  kept  a  long  time  in 
the  small,  finished  cigarette.  Of  course  there 
are  many  small  Turkish  cigarette  factories,  or 
shops,  for  making  the  hand-made  varieties; 
but  it  is  of  the  expertly  developed  cigarette 
business  that  I  am  now  speaking.  And  it  is 


PREPARING  FOR  MANUFACTURE  59 

only  in  the  big"  factories,  where  modern  scien- 
tific methods  make  it  possible  to  supply  with 
fresh  goods  the  ever  increasing  demand,  that 
the  perfection  of  the  cigarette  is  really 
achieved. 

I  shall  never  forget  my  first  visit  to  the  fra- 
grant Turkish  tobacco  rooms  in  an  upper  story 
of  the  largest  factory  in  New  -.. 
York  where  all-Turkish  ciga-  <*"*"*«*** 
rettes  are  made.  I  had  for  years  \Ja*ra™*  ?/ 
been  fairly  familiar  with  the  T°n*°fL>eit 
methods  of  harvesting  and  cate  Leaves 
handling  our  domestic  tobacco  and  had 
reveled  in  the  aroma  of  the  choicest  grades 
in  warehouses  and  factories.  But  I  had  never 
dreamed  of  such  a  delightful  tobacco  frag- 
rance as  arose  from  the  tons  upon  tons  of 
Turkish  tobacco  heaped  upon  shelves  in  huge 
rooms  heated  like  the  steam-rooms  in  Turk- 
ish baths — bales  of  tobacco  that  had  been  un- 
covered and  were  softening  for  the  preliminary 
stages  of  cigarette  making. 

I  imagined  all  the  romance  of  the  Orient 
rolled  into  that  sweet  aroma.  Fragrance  al- 
ways fosters  joyous  thoughts,  and  here,  in  con- 
centrated form,  was  the  choicest  product  of 
the  soil  of  the  land  of  alabaster  and  richest 
perfumes;  the  most  delicate  leaves  of  the  fin- 
est crops  of  as  many  as  thirty  different  varie- 
ties of  Turkish  tobacco.  Leaves  of  the  supe- 
rior quality  grown  only  on  the  slopes  of  the 
hills  of  Xanthi,  rare  leaves  from  the  districts 
of  Samsoun,  Maden,  Dere,  Djannik,  Baffra 
and  Smyrna  in  Asia  Minor,  and  the  even  more 


60  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

coveted  Cavalla,  Serres,  Kir  and  Zichna 
leaves  of  Macedonia. 

There  is  no  need  further  to  enumerate  all 
the  strange  names.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  in  this 
factory,  owned  by  the  greatest  tobacco  organi- 
zation in  the  world,  are  the  finest  leaves  of  all 
grades  of  Turkish  tobacco,  raised  and  manip- 
ulated with  care  unknown  in  any  other  part 
of  the  world,  their  purchase  made  possible 
by  the  company's  vast  resources. 

It  is  quite  impossible  to  comprehend  the 
infinite  care,  the  months  of  labor  which  those 
delicate  imported  leaves  represent. 

The  largest  Turkish  tobacco  leaves  rarely 
are  as  large  as  the  smallest  American  leaves. 
Most  of  them  are  smaller  than  the  human 
hand,  all  of  them  are  egg-shaped,  or  lance- 
shaped,  and  tons  upon  tons  of  the  most  deli- 
cate of  them  are  no  more  than  two  inches  wide 
and  three  inches  long,  while  thousands  in 
some  bales  are  less  than  an  inch  in  width  and 
in  length.  They  are  as  thin  as  ordinary  tissue 
paper,  and  it  takes  several  hundred  of  them 
on  the  average,  more  often  thousands,  to 
weigh  a  pound. 

Only  when  you  are  told  that,  in  the  harvest, 
each  leaf,  as  it  is  plucked  from  the  growing 
tobacco  stalk,  is  threaded  with  others  upon  a 
string  will  you  begin  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the 
work  involved  in  them. 

These  strings  are  worthy  a  second  glance. 
Once  full,  they  are  hung  on  scaffolds  and  on  the 
sides  of  the  packhouses  and  there  exposed  to  a 
full  sweep  of  balmy  air  and  sunshine  of  the 
Orient  until  the  tobacco  is  cured.  The  length 


COMPARISON  OF  TURKISH  CIGARETTE  TOBACCO 
LEAVES  WITH  A  DOMESTIC  LEAF 

These  parts  of  bales  of  very  fine  Xanthi  tobacco  show  how  compactly 
and  with  what  extreme  care  Turkish  leaves  are  packed.  The  center  bale  is 
an  example  of  "dubec"  packing,  famous  for  the  evenness  of  quality  and 
size  of  the  leaves.  Turkish  leaves  average  three  and  a  half  inches  in  length", 
some  being  no  more  than  an  inch  long,  and  it  takes  thousands  of  them  to 
weigh  a  pound.  Note  the  hole  that  is  in  each  tiny  leaf,  made  with  a  needle 
when  gathering,  for  strings  to  be  drawn  through  for  hanging  the  leaves  up 
while  curing.  The  large  leaf  is  the  average  size  of  the  high  grade  of 
"bright"  Virginia  tobacco  of  the  kind  from  which  domestic,  and  Turkish 
and  domestic  blended,  cigarettes  are  made.  The  illustration  gives  an  idea 
of  the  relative  size  of  Turkish  and  domestic  tobacco  leaves. 


PREPARING  FOR  MANUFACTURE  61 

of  time  depends  upon  the  weather  conditions 
and  the  nature  of  the  leaves,  but  after  the  cur- 
ing the  strings  of  leaves  are  kept  in  the  pack- 
houses  until  the  planter  is  ready  to  pack  them. 
Then  he  takes  the  tiny  leaves  from  the  strings, 
places  them  by  size  one  upon  another,  and  so 
forms  a  pastal  (eighty  to  one  hundred  leaves). 
These  pastals  are  later  packed  into  bales  and 
in  that  form  are  shipped  to  America. 

At  these  harvesting  and  curing  times  the 
buyers  representing  the  great  American  ciga- 
rette manufacturers  are  at  their  busiest,  locat- 
ing and  buying  the  best  crops.  None  but  men 
who  were  either  born  in  the  tobacco  districts 
of  the  Orient,  or  have  become  tobacco  experts 
after  years  of  experience  among  the  planters, 
are  intrusted  with  the  purchasing.  Much  de- 
pends on  their  judgment  and  skill,  and  they 
are  chosen  accordingly.  Under  their  super- 
vision, at  the  principal  points  for  the  shipment 
of  Turkish  tobacco,  the  American  companies 
maintain  great  storage  warehouses,  where 
their  Turkish  purchases  are  packed  in  jute  or 
goat-hair  covered  bales,  each  bale  containing 
the  leaves  of  only  one  grade. 

The  labor  of  packing  is  infinite,  thf  tiny 
leaves  being  again   laboriously   placed   one 
upon  another,  and  all  under  the     ~ 
eyes  of  our  fellow-countrymen,     Ov^n 
for  which  supervision  there  is  an        Uishonesi 
excellent  reason.    Formerly,  be-          p    ,  !v* 
fore  the  large  American  manu-  c  mg 

facturers  sent  their  own  experts  to  do  this 
work,  they  could  not  be  sure  of  getting  good, 
uniform  grades,  partly  because  of  the  ignor- 


62  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

ance  but  mostly  because  of  the  dishonesty  of 
the  native  farmers  and  middlemen,  who 
packed  and  shipped  all  of  the  tobacco.  In 
fact,  to  do  the  work  themselves  was  the  only 
way  the  manufacturers  could  be  sure  of  get- 
ting what  they  paid  for. 

Their  advent  into  the  field  has  made  a  gen- 
eral advance  in  honest  packing,  but  small 
manufacturers  still  are  at  the  mercy  of  un- 
scrupulous Orientals  who  seem  to  have  an 
inherent  desire  to  deceive.  They  can  easily 
do  this  by  inserting  bad  leaves  between  good 
ones  in  the  bales,  each  containing  many  thou- 
sands compactly  "nested."  It  was  in  order  to 
overcome  these  wiles  of  the  natives,  and  to  in- 
sure evenness  and  excellence  of  quality  in  the 
tobacco  sent  here  for  our  cigarettes  that  our 
large  manufacturers,  after  spending  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  dollars  in  futile  correc- 
tives, hit  upon  the  plan  of  putting  their 
Oriental  work  into  the  hands  of  Occidentals 
who  were  experts  in  Oriental  tobacco. 

Once  the  tobacco  has  arrived  in  this 
country  it  is  kept  in  bond-storage  until  needed 
at  the  factory.  The  import  duty  is  thirty-five 
cents  per  pound,  which,  added  to  the  first 
cost,  makes  Turkish  tobacco  among  the  most 
expensive  in  the  world,  some  of  the  finer 
commercial  grades  often  reaching  three  dol- 
lars or  more  a  pound,  and  some  special  grades 
being  worth  much  more. 

The  storage  is  from  two  to  four  years,  dur- 
ing which  time  the  tobacco  is  constantly 
mellowed  and  sweetened  by  natural  aging 
process  similar  to  those  described  in  the 


PREPARING  FOR  MANUFACTURE  63 

chapter  on  the  storage  of  domestic  leaf.  Each 
bale  is  labeled  with  a  number  indicating  the 
grade  of  leaves  within. 

The  tobacco  is  next  kept  in  its  bales  in  the 
storeroom  of  the  factory  until  quantities  are 
needed  for  the  special  blends  that  go  into  the 
brands  of  cigarettes  which  are  being  manu- 
factured. Then  the  covering  is  removed  from 
the  bales  and,  in  order  to  facilitate  separation, 
the  tobacco  is  put  upon  shelves  in  a  sweat- 
room,  where  the  leaves  become  moist  and 
soft,  as  described  earlier. 

These  leaves  are  now  ready  for  blending, 
but,  before  we  proceed  with  them,  it  will  be 
well  to  recall  some  of  the  facts  about  the 
blending  of  cigarette  tobacco  in  general.  In 
the  first  place,  it  is  necessary  to  blend  to- 
baccos, and  to  blend  them  skillfully,  in  order 
to  produce  a  cigarette  that  provides  a  pleas- 
ant smoke.  Next,  it  is  absolutely  impossible 
to  make  a  cigarette  that  will  not  vary  in 
aroma  and  smoking  quality,  unless  the  blend 
is  made  by  mixing  not  two,  but  a  large  num- 
ber of  leaves.  Third,  it  is  equally  impos- 
sible to  prevent  variation  unless  the  ingredi- 
ents are  always  maintained  in  fixed  propor- 
tions. For  these  reasons,  each  brand  of  ciga- 
rette has  its  own  especial  formula,  which  is 
invariably  followed — a  formula  calling  for 
certain  percentages  of  each  of  a  number  of 
different  grades  of  leaves  and  of  several  sea- 
sons' crops,  and  even  a  variety  of  sizes  of  the 
different  leaves. 

Now,  great  as  is  the  care  exercised  in  ciga- 


64  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

rette  tobacco  blending  in  general,  the  very 
greatest  care  is  exercised  in  the 
Blending  blending  of  the  leaves  intended 
Carried  to  for  cigarettes  of  the  Turkish 
Highest  variety  made  in  this  country.  In 

Degree  ^m    indeed    the    biending    is 

carried  to  its  highest  degree  of  excellence. 

Thus,  not  one  bale,  but  from  fifteen  to  thirty 
bales  of  each  grade  are  put  on  the  shelves  of 
the  sweat-room,  so  that  when  the  blenders  go 
for  the  needed  quantity  of  leaves  of  that 
grade,  they  take  a  few  leaves  from  each  of  the 
fifteen  or  more  bales.  That  is  to  guard 
against  any  possible  variation  in  the  different 
bales  of  the  same  grade.  Only  the  storage 
and  blending  of  several  crops,  and  of  many 
grades  of  those  crops,  make  possible  a  ciga- 
rette that,  year  after  year,  will  burn  and 
taste  without  variation. 

It  is  clear  from  this  that  only  the  best  of 
expert  labor  can  safely  be  employed,  and,  as 
T  .  .  a  matter  of  fact,  the  manufac- 
lurksanc  turer's  own  best  interest  com- 
Greefts  ^  ^^  ^^  tQ  empiov  no  other 
Employed  in  SOTtu  Thus,  in  a  well  conducted 
cigarette  factory  where  Turkish 
tobacco  is  used,  all  of  this  imported  tobacco  is 
handled  and  blended  by  natives  of  the  coun- 
tries from  which  the  leaves  come,  because  the 
workers  of  those  countries  understand  their 
own  tobacco  better  than  the  workers  of 
other  countries.  In  the  Turkish  tobacco 
rooms  there  are,  therefore,  often  as  many 
as  a  hundred  Orientals  working,  and 
seldom  fewer  than  fifty.  These  workers  are 


PREPARING  FOR  MANUFACTURE  65 

the  best,  at  their  especial  tasks,  that  their 
native  lands  produce.  Just  as  the  best  talent 
among  opera  singers  and  other  professionals 
is  attracted  to  the  United  States  by  our  will- 
ingness to  pay  well  for  the  best  in  the  world, 
so  skilled  tobacco  workers  have  been  at- 
tracted to  our  factories. 

It  is  true  that  there  is  comparatively  little 
so-called  "Turkish"  tobacco  imported  from 
Greece  proper,  but  the  Greeks  are  expert  in 
the  work  of  blending,  so  it  happens  that  there 
are  always  a  number  of  Greeks  working  side 
by  side  with  Turks.  However,  political  and 
racial  differences  are  forgotten  in  the  pursuits 
of  industry.  The  last  touch  of  efficiency  is 
added  by  the  fact  that  the  superintendents 
over  these  workers  are  men  that  have  spent 
years  in  the  districts  from  which  the  tobacco 
comes. 

Formulae  must,  of  course,  be  kept  secret. 
Therefore,  among  the  workers  in  this  depart- 
ment the  manager  is  the  only  one  who  knows 
the  composition  of  the  different  brands,  or, 
indeed,  for  what  brand  the  blend  in  prepara- 
tion at  a  given  time  is  being  made.  The  men 
simply  gather  as  many  pounds  or  ounces  of 
the  different  grades  as  they  are  told  to  bring 
from  the  steam-room;  they  remain  in  com- 
plete ignorance  of  the  secret  of  the  formula 
that  gives  distinction  to  the  cigarettes  which 
they  are  making. 

But  all  this  while  we  are  delaying  the  prog- 
ress of  the  raw  material.  From  this  aromatic 
paradise  the  men  take  the  tobacco  to  the 


66  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

"pickers5  tables/'  These,  of  which  there  are 
always  several,  are  long,  bench-like  contri- 
vances at  which  many  men  or  women  sit  on 
either  side.  They  have  movable  conveyor 
tops.  With  nimble  fingers  the  workers  pick 
apart  the  tiny  leaves  of  the  grades  of  tobacco 
that  they  have  been  familiar  with  from  child- 
hood. 

Next,  the  separated  leaves,  thus  released 
from  years  of  bondage  in  the  bales,  are  con- 
veyed by  the  moving  table  tops,  and  by  a 
belt,  to  a  revolving  cylinder,  through  which 
they  flutter  in  live  steam,  until  at  the  end 
they  are  blown  by  a  blast  of  air  upward  into 
what  is  called  a  "cyclone."  This  is  a  sort  of 
hopper  that  releases  the  air  blast  at  the  top 
while  the  tobacco  leaves  drop  through  the 
bottom  and  into  trucks. 

By  the  time  the  leaves  travel  through  the 
cylinders,  cyclones,  and  tubes  they  are  thor- 
oughly blended,  mixed  one  with  another.  In 
the  trucks,  while  they  await  the  actual  proc- 
esses of  making  the  cigarette  their  fragrance 
blends  further. 

For  this  same  purpose  the  blended  crops 
and  grades  of  domestic  tobacco  are  kept  in  the 
trucks  for  a  time.  The  time  for  both  domes- 
tic and  Turkish  varies  from  one  hour  to  five 
hours — in  short,  until  it  becomes  pliable  and 
uniform  in  moisture. 

It  is  then  ready  for  cutting,  or  shredding, 
into  the  form  in  which  it  is  at  last  to  come  to 
the  smoker. 

This  form  is  determined  by  the  cutting 


TOBACCO  CUTTING  MACHINES 

Each  of  these  ponderous  machines  shreds  5,000  pounds  of  tobacco  a 
day,  the  knife  in  the  center,  resembling  a  huge  safety-razor  blade,  cutting 
the  tobacco  leaves,  pressed  into  a  very  compact  four-inch  cake,  at  the  rate 
of  300  slices  a  minute.  The  large  gears  shown  operate  the  device  for 
shoving  the  cake  forward  and  revolve  so  slowly  that  the  movement  is 
barely  perceptible.  All  gears  about  which  operators  work  are  protected  by 
guards.  The  shredded  tobacco  is  carried  away  on  the  endless  belt  upon 
which  it  falls. 


PREPARING  FOR  MANUFACTURE  67 

machine,  a  ponderous  device  with  a  keen- 
edged  knife  twenty  inches  wide 
working  vertically.  The  knife  £*  jf0, 
looks  like  a  huge  safety-razor  ^redded 
blade  and  apparently  is  as  sharp,  *f  1  r^en' 
for,  at  the  rate  of  300  slices  a  dous  Speed 
minute,  it  slashes  through  a  four-inch  cake 
of  solidly  compressed  tobacco  leaves.  The 
blade  is  adjusted  to  cut  the  tobacco  to  the 
fineness  required  for  any  particular  brand  of 
cigarette,  ranging  from  forty  to  sixty  cuts  to 
an  inch  of  the  tobacco  cake.  Often  there  are 
as  many  as  six,  or  even  more,  of  these  ma- 
chines slicing  away  at  a  tremendous  speed, 
each  shredding  the  tobacco  at  the  rate  of 
5,000  pounds  in  a  working-day. 

From  below  the  knife,  the  shredded  to- 
bacco falls  upon  a  belt  that  conveys  it  to  a 
steam  cylinder  drier  in  which  the  tempera- 
ture is  about  150  degrees.  Coming  out  of  this 
drier,  the  shreds  pass  through  a  cooling  cyl- 
inder. The  temperature  of  the  beautiful, 
golden-colored  mass  as  it  leaves  this  cooler 
is  about  110  degrees.  It  then  drops  into  boxes 
with  wheels  under  them  ("Saratogas"  they 
are  called  in  the  factory),  each  of  which  holds 
about  200  pounds.  For  from  twenty-four  to 
forty-eight  hours  the  shredded  tobacco  is 
kept  in  these. 

What  the  manufacturer  has  now  secured  is 
a  closely  knitted  and  thoroughly  blended 
mass  of  the  choicest  cigarette  tobaccos  of 
this  country  and  of  the  Orient.  The  object 
in  keeping  it  again  in  storage  is  to  let  the 
heat  that  it  contains  give  it  a  mellowness 


68  .     THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

which  it  would  not  have  if  immediately 
hurried  on  to  the  final  process.  So,  after  it 
has  been  sufficiently  mellowed,  the  product 
is  passed  through  another  revolving  cylinder, 
called  the  dressing  machine,  which  shakes 
out  all  tobacco  that  may  have  become  matted 
or  formed  into  lumps,  separates  and  straightens 
the  shredded  fibers  and  puts  the  whole  in  the 
best  possible  condition  for  manufacture  into 
cigarettes. 

Thoroughly  cleaned — in  fact,  absolutely 
pure — the  tobacco  now  leaves  the  dressing 
cylinders  and  falls  upon  wheeled  trucks, 
ready  at  last  for  the  cigarette  making  ma- 
chines. At  every  stage  of  its  journey  it  has 
been  handled  by  tobacco  experts  trained  for 
years  in  the  United  States,  Europe  or  Asia.  It 
is  the  best  quality;  it  has  received  the  best 
care. 

But  we  must  not  delay.  The  machines  are 
waiting. 


CHAPTER  V 

MAKING  THE  CIGARETTE 

Speed  with  Which  Cigarettes  Are  Made — Printing  the  Names 
— Shaping  and  Pasting — A  "Cigarette-Girl"  for  Thirty- 
Seven  Years — Factories  Are  Clean  and  Healthful — How 
Cork  Tips  Are  Made — Putting  on  the  Cork  Tips — 
Report  by  a  Pure  Food  Expert. 

THE  fragrant  leaves  that  we  have  traced 
from  their  homes  in  the  health-giving 
districts  in  our  own  South,  and  from  the 
fields  of  the  colorful  East — the  leaves  that  we 
have  seen  grown  with  such  care  and  prepared 
with  so  much  skill — are  now  about  to  undergo 
their  final  transformation  at  the  hands  of  the 
manufacturer.     They   are  about  to  become 
cigarettes. 

Previous  to  the  invention  of  the  first  prac- 
tical machine  for  cigarette  making,  cigarettes 
were  manufactured  by  the  hands  of  men  and 
women.  A  great  many  Greeks  and  Turks 
were  employed  at  this  work,  but  gradually 
nimble-fingered  girls  predominated  in  the 
factories.  The  average  number  of  cigarettes 
made  per  day  by  each  was  about  2,500. 

Those  methods  are  obsolete.  Not  only  does 
absolute  cleanliness  now  permeate  every 
phase  of  cigarette  manufacturing;  not  only 
are  the  buildings  in  which  the  work  is  done 
well  ventilated  and  healthful ;  but  the  raw  ma- 
terial from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  pro- 
cess is  as  carefully  protected  from  con- 

69 


70  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

tamination  as  that  in  any  pure  food  factory. 
In  fact  there  is  no  purer  product  than  the  ciga- 
rette as  made  in  our  big,  modern,  American 
factories. 

Besides  all  this  we  must  reckon  with  twen- 
tieth century  machinery.  Machinery — scien- 
tific equipment — has  made  possible  tremen- 
dous economies  in  the  cigarette.  Machinery 
has  enabled  the  manufacturers  enormously  to 
increase  production  in  order  to  keep  pace 
with  an  ever  increasing  demand ;  and  ingenious 
inventions  have  provided  means  whereby  the 
quality  of  the  output  has  improved  as  the 
quantity  has  increased.  Not  only  because  of 
developed  methods  of  growth  and  handling, 
but  also  because  of  perfected  machinery,  the 
cigarette  smoker  is  today  getting  a  better 
smoke  at  a  much  lower  price  than  he  ever 
secured  before. 

Except  for  the  machine  by  which  the  type 
for  this  book  was  set  and  the  printing  press 
that  printed  it,  it  is  doubtful  if  there  is  any- 
where in  the  world  a  swifter  or  more  intricate 
mechanical  device  than  the  cigarette  making 
machine.  It  is,  in  fact,  two  machines  in  one,  for 
it  is  a  combination  of  a  cigarette  forming  ma- 
chine and  a  two  color  process  printing  press. 

Imagine  one  of  these  mechanical  marvels 
doing  the  work  formerly  done  by  seventy-six 
c  .  ..»  hand  operators,  whizzing  away 

Wh'  h  at  the  rate  of  40°  finished  ciga- 

Ci        tt          rettes  per  minute,  190,000  in  an 
Are  M  <T       ordinary  working-day.    Then  try 
to  visualize  a  vast  factory  floor 
where  there  are  seventy-five  of  these  hum- 


MAKING  THE  CIGARETTE  71 

ming  machines  usually  all  running  simultane- 
ously with  a  capacity  of  more  than  14,000,- 
000  cigarettes  in  a  single  day — 14,000,000 
cigarettes  wrapped,  labeled  with  a  name 
printed  on  each,  often  in  bronze  and  one  other 
color,  all  ready  for  smoking.  Mentally  picture 
several  of  these  great  busy  factories  belong- 
ing to  a  single  one  of  the  leading  cigarette 
manufacturers.  Then  you  will  have  some 
idea  of  the  magnitude  and  importance  of  the 
phase  of  the  great  cigarette  industry  at  which 
we  have  now  arrived,  the  actual  forming  of 
the  tobacco  and  its  paper  container  into  the 
finished  cigarette. 

We  followed  the  tobacco,  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  through  the  various  blending,  recon- 
ditioning and  shredding  processes  and  left  it 
on  the  trucks  as  it  came  out  of  the  shredding 
devices  in  perfect  order  for  entering  the 
machines  that  make  the  cigarettes.  So  deli- 
cately has  the  blending  been  done,  so  thor- 
oughly mixed  are  the  many  different  kinds 
and  grades  of  leaves,  that  now  when  the  to- 
bacco is  ready  to  enter  the  machines  it  is  more 
than  likely  that  there  are,  in  every  very  small 
fraction  of  an  ounce  of  the  filler  that  it  takes 
to  make  a  cigarette,  parts  of  all  the  different 
grades. 

Filled  with  this  fragrant  shredded  tobacco, 
the  trucks  are  wheeled  to  the  cigarette  making 
machines  and  here  the  tobacco  is  first  fed  into 
a  large  hopper  at  the  top  of  each.  There 
are  two  drums,  both  revolving  in  the  same 
direction,  from  each  of  which  protrude  thou- 


72  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

sands  of  little  curved  teeth,  the  teeth  of  the 
lower  one  being  a  little  longer  than  those  of 
the  upper.  The  tobacco  feeds  into  a  small 
slit  between  these  two  drums  and  is  deposited 
against  metal  combs.  A  "barrel  roller," 
which  is  a  small  cylinder  with  teeth  on  it, 
picks  the  tobacco  from  between  the  teeth  of 
the  combs  and  a  fan  cylinder  throws  it  on 
a  slowly  moving  wide  canvas  belt.  The  to- 
bacco is  deposited  on  this  in  a  flat  layer  less 
than  half  an  inch  thick.  A  lever  regulating 
the  speed  of  this  carrying  belt  determines  the 
weight  and  compactness  of  the  finished  pro- 
duct. 

Next,  another  toothed  roller,  called  a  "pin- 
roller,"  in  what  is  known  as  the  "concave," 
carries  the  tobacco  from  the  belt,  and  a  speed- 
roller  throws  it  rapidly  down  into  a  metal 
hopper  from  which  it  is  deposited  on  the  ciga- 
rette paper  that  is  traveling  endlessly  be- 
neath. The  most  characteristic  sound  of  a 
cigarette  factory  is  the  constant  thumping  of 
a  knocker  that  every  few  seconds  knocks  vig- 
orously against  the  inside  of  this  hopper  on 
each  of  the  many  machines  to  disloge  any 
particles  of  tobacco  that  may  have  become  at- 
tached to  the  metal,  thus  preventing  clogging 
of  the  golden  shreds. 

Here  must  be  started  the  description  of 
another  part  of  this  marvelous  machine.  I 
must  begin  with  the  introduction  of  the  ciga- 
rette paper  and  follow  it  through  to  the  point 
where  the  tobacco  falls  upon  it. 

This   delicate   cigarette   paper   comes   in 


MAKING  THE  CIGARETTE  73 

strips  an  inch  wide  wound  in  large  rolls  upon 
a  spool.  Each  roll  contains  _  .  . 

paper  enough  for  57,000  ciga-  . *^r™tin8 
rettes.  The  paper  is  fed  over  a  the  Names 
rubber  covered  wheel  that  takes  ™  ^aper 
it  through  the  process  of  print-  rapp€ 

ing  upon  it  the  name  of  the  cigarette  then 
being  manufactured,  at  just  the  right  spot,  so 
that  it  will  appear  on  each  cigarette. 

The  printing  is  done  from  revolving  dies. 
When  the  name  designs  call  for  a  part  of  the 
printing  in  bronze,  as  do  those  of  three- 
quarters  of  the  cigarettes  on  the  market  to- 
day, "sizing"  from  a  series  of  four  wheels  is 
first  spread  upon  the  dies  for  the  bronze  de- 
sign and  is  transferred  from  the  dies  to  the 
paper.  Then,  immediately  after  this  sticky 
sizing  adheres  to  the  paper,  bronze  dust  is 
flapped  on  it  by  revolving  velvet  daubers. 

After  this  the  paper  passes  to  a  velvet  belt 
that  "sets"  the  bronze  and  takes  off  the  waste 
particles.  A  revolving  brush  flicks  these  par- 
ticles from  the  velvet  belt  and  deposits  them 
in  a  box  below,  from  which  they  are  subse- 
quently taken  and  used  again. 

All  this  while,  a  little  beyond,  rollers  are 
inking  the  dies  that  will  print  the  second  color 
used  in  the  name  design.  The  paper  travels 
on  over  these  dies,  and,  as  it  leaves  them,  the 
name  in  two  colors  is  complete. 

Over  a  roller  the  paper  keeps  traveling  until 
it  runs  under  the  metal  hopper  on  the  ma- 
chine, where  the  tobacco  drops  upon  it  as 
described  in  a  preceding  paragraph.  Now 


74  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

carrying  the  tobacco  with  it,  it  continues  on 
its  way. 

A  few  inches  farther  on,  the  tobacco  laden 
paper  meets  and  overlays  an  endless  thin  can- 
vas belt  with  which  it  is  carried 
Shaping  through  a  "tongue."  This  tongue 

a"d  it  is  that  shapes  the  cigarette. 

Pasting  the       jt  ig   a   funnel>   as  wide   as   the 

canvas  belt  at  the  end  where  the 
tobacco,  paper  and  belt  enter,  but  it  gradually 
tapers  until,  at  its  far  end,  it  is  just  the  size 
and  form  of  the  cigarette  itself. 

The  canvas  belt  curves  up  on  either  side  as 
it  passes  through  this  smooth  funnel,  and 
folds  the  paper  around  the  tobacco  so  as  to 
leave  one  edge  of  the  paper  protruding  to 
form  the  flap  upon  which  paste  will  soon  be 
automatically  spread  to  fasten  the  paper 
about  the  tobacco. 

Half  a  second  before  the  paste  comes  in 
contact  with  the  paper,  revolving  brushes 
play  their  part  by  throwing  off  any  loose  par- 
ticles of  tobacco  that  may  be  upon  the 
wrapper.  Absolutely  pure  vegetable  paste 
(casein)  is  used,  and,  immediately  after  the 
brushing,  is  spread  upon  the  paper  from  a 
laterally  revolving  metal  wheel.  Directly 
after  this  the  final  folding  of  the  belt  and 
paper  as  they  slip  through  the  smaller  end  of 
the  "tongue"  securely  pastes  down  the  pro- 
truding flap. 

There  is  another  kind  of  machine  that  fast- 
ens the  edges  of  the  paper  together  by  crimp- 
ing, no  paste  being  used  at  all.  But  this  is  not 


PRINTING  NAMES  ON  CIGARETTE  PAPERS 

By  this  device  the  names  and  monograms,  or  other  designs,  are  printed 
in  bronze  and  one  other  color  at  a  rate  of  400  cigarettes  a  minute  from  the 
paper  fed  from  the  large  roll  above.  Each  roll  contains  paper  enough  for 
57,000  cigarettes.  Following  is  the  process:  1.  Paper  leaving  roll  to 
travel  around  large  wheel  in  center.  2.  Die  for  putting  sizing  for  bronze 
design  upon  paper.  3.  Cup  for  sizing  which  is  carried  to  die  on  a  series  of 
rollers.  4.  Cup  for  holding  bronze.  5.  Velvet  daubers  which  flap  bronze 
upon  the  sizing  as  the  paper  travels  around  wheel.  6.  Endless  velvet  belt 
which  "sets"  the  bronze  and  removes  superfluous  particles.  7.  Brush  for 
removing  superfluous  bronze  from  belt.  8.  Die  for  printing  name  of 
cigarette  in  design.  9.  Cup  for  holding  ink  which  is  carried  to  die  on 
rollers.  10.  Printed  cigarette  paper  emerging  from  printing  device  and 
entering  cigarette  forming  machine.  Only  one  side  of  the  printer  is  used 
when  the  design  is  all  in  bronze  or  in  only  one  color. 


MAKING  THE  CIGARETTE  75 

in  general  use  except  in  the  making  of  the 
Russian  style  of  cigarettes  with"  mouthpieces 
on  them,  and  these  are  manufactured  in  com- 
paratively small  quantities  in  the  United 
States. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  typical  machine 
and  the  work  that  it  is  doing:  The  canvas 
belt,  emerging  from  the  "tongue,"  unfolds 
and  descends  over  wheels  that  carry  it  end- 
lessly around,  while  the  "cigarette  rod"— the 
name  given  to  the  long  pasted  paper  filled 
with  tobacco — proceeds  straight  onward  into 
a  brass  funnel  that  enters  a  "ledger  plate," 
through  the  middle  of  which  is  a  hole  just  the 
size  of  the  cigarette.  As  it  leaves  the  "ledger 
plate"  it  encounters  a  six-inch,  keen-edged, 
circular  knife  turning  at  a  speed  of  4,000  revo- 
lutions a  minute. 

This  buzzing  knife  cuts  the  "cigarette  rod" 
into  the  lengths  desired  for  the  different  ciga- 
rettes, each  length  being  regu-  n. 
lated  by  gears  that  control  the  _  Clf arc  .** 
speed  of  the  knife  carriage.  It  Cut  7.6ar* 
is  one  of  the  most  carefully  ^"cii/a 
looked  after  parts  of  the  ma- 
chine— that  knife.  Always  it  and  its  fellows 
must  be  kept  in  first-class  condition,  and  for 
this  purpose  every  factory  has  a  grinding 
room  where  hundreds  of  the  blades  are  being 
constantly  ground  on  a  series  of  emery 
wheels.  When,  from  its  place  in  the  machine, 
it  has  done  its  work  of  cutting,  the  long  pro- 
cess is  nearly  at  an  end.  Divided  into  their 
destined  lengths,  the  cigarettes  move  on  to  a 


76  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

belt  called  the  "cigarette  catcher,"  which  de- 
posits them  on  a  stationary  flat  surface. 

Save  in  the  case  of  the  cork  tipped  brands, 
the  cigarette  is  now  complete,  and  a  single 
machine,  aided  by  one  girl  and  a  mechanic 
who  looks  after  several  machines,  has  made  it 
so,  at  the  rate  of  400  cigarettes  per  minute. 

This  cigarette  making  machine  demands 
more  care  than  a  thoroughbred  horse.  Espec- 
ially is  it  necessary  to  guard  against  the  per- 
colation of  any  infinitesimal  bit  of  oil  into  the 
tobacco,  and  so  well  is  that  guard  now  exer- 
cised that  this  annoyance,  which  in  the  early 
days  of  the  machine-made  cigarettes  was  a 
serious  matter,  has  now  been  at  last  entirely 
eliminated. 

Frequently,  in  those  pioneer  times,  a  small 
amount  of  oil  carelessly  allowed  to  get  into 
the  tobacco  from  some  portion  of  the  machine 
would  ruin  large  quantities,  for,  in  smoking, 
the  pungent  taste  of  oil,  which  is  decidedly 
disagreeable,  was  quickly  detected  and  made 
the  cigarettes  unmarketable.  The  riddance 
of  the  possibility  of  such  an  accident  in  these 
days  is  one  of  the  triumphs  of  modern  ciga- 
rette manufacture. 

And  now  one  word  more  about  that  won- 
derful cigarette  making  machine.  Because  it 
is  the  source  of  great  economy,  doing  the 
work  once  performed  by  about  seventy-six 
hand-workers,  you  must  not,  however,  con- 
clude that  this  almost  human  mechanism  has 
thrown  out  of  employment  the  once  familiar 
"cigarette-girl."  On  the  contrary,  the  ever 


|i|fi|ji* 

£  ^"ul^s 
<  O-Q^^WH 

§  lit*Ui 

3W 

o  ^SaSS'S'a" 
w      "illlS 

co.tf  S'C  &s2"« 


MAKING  THE  CIGARETTE  77 

increasing  production  of  cigarettes  has  made 
places  for  an  increasing  number  of  girls  in  the 
factories  year  after  year,  and  there  have  al- 
ways been  a  great  many  more  girls  employed 
in  one  department  or  another  since  machinery 
took  the  place  of  hand  work  than  there  were 
before. 

More  than  this,  I  have  never  seen  a  health- 
ier, happier  looking  body  of  factory  girls  than 
those  in  the  employ  of  the  big  -  <t 
cigarette  factories  that  I  have A 
visited.  In  one  I  talked  to  a 
woman  who  has  been  a  "ciga- 
rette-girl"  for  thirty-seven 
years.  She  has  been  in  the  same  factory 
since  the  days  when  practically  all  cigarettes 
were  made  by  hand  and  was  first  a  hand  oper- 
ator. She  became  a  machine  operator,  and  is 
now  one  of  the  forewomen  in  the  factory  in 
question.  I  found  numbers ,  of  other  "ciga- 
rette-girls" who  had  been  in  the  factories 
from  twenty  to  thirty-five  years. 

These  frequent  instances  of  long  service 
surely  allay  any  suspicion  that  there  is  any- 
thing injurious  to  health  in  the  constant  as- 
sociation with  tobacco.  The  foreman  of  the 
factory  in  which  I  found  the  woman  with  a 
record  of  thirty-seven  years,  said  that  never 
in  his  long  experience  had  he  known  of  a  case 
where  the  work  injured  the  health  of  an  em- 
ployee. My  own  observation  leads  me  to  be- 
lieve that,  far  from  being  injurious,  the  to- 
bacco odor  is  beneficial. 

Scrupulous  cleanliness  characterizes,  more- 


78  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

over,  all  of  the  different  processes  in  the  man- 

facturing  of  cigarettes.     There 

Factories         ig  a  free  circuiatiOn  of  fresh  air 

Are  Clean        through  the  rooms  of  the  fac- 

VY1  ,  Lr  .        tories,  also  a  remarkable  absence 

of    the    tobacco  dust  that  one 

might  expect  to  find  where  tons  of  finely 

shredded  tobacco  are  always  being  carried 

from  one  process  to  another. 

Finally,  in  the  modern  factory,  the  neat  per- 
sonal appearance  of  the  employees  reflects 
their  surroundings.  They  are  clean,  they 
wear  specially  designed  "bungalow"  aprons, 
and  on  their  heads  they  wear  neat  caps  which 
completely  cover  their  hair. 

I  have  said  that  the  introduction  of  ma- 
chinery into  this  industry  produces  more  ciga- 
rettes and  better  ones.  It  also  makes  for 
uniformity  of  quality.  In  this  respect  it  ac- 
complishes what  human  hands  cannot,  how- 
ever skillful  they  may  be.  It  does  that,  and  it 
insures  the  absolute  cleanliness  of  the  finished 
product. 

During  the  making  of  the  cigarette,  from 
the  time  the  tobacco  enters  the  cutting 
machines  through  to  the  final  process,  the 
tobacco  never  once  comes  in  contact  with  the 
operator's  hands. 

The  first  human  touch  that  the  cigarette  re- 
ceives comes  only  now  that  the  machine  has 
finished  its  labors,  and  that  touch  is  of  the 
lightest.  ,Almost  as  rapidly  as  the  great 
mechanism  deposits  cigarettes  from  the 
"cigarette  catcher,"  a  girl  who  is  also  called 
a  "cigarette  catcher,"  gathers  them  and  puts 


MAKING  THE  CIGARETTE  79 

them  into  trays.  This  girl  is  the  first  inspector 
of  the  finished  product.  Although  the  ciga- 
rettes are  flying  out  at  the  average  rate  of  400 
per  minute,  she  deftly  picks  out  the  few  im- 
perfect ones  and  drops  them  into  a  hopper  at 
the  side  of  the  machine,  which  carries  them 
away.  These  cigarettes  are  simply  the  ones  that 
are  either  too  full  of  tobacco  or  not  full 
enough,  or  others  from  which  the  paper  may 
have  been  torn.  None  of  these  ever  gets  past 
the  inspector. 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  cork-tip- 
ped variety  and  have  said  that,  save  where 
such  tip  is  demanded,  the  cigarette  left  the 
cigarette  making  machine  a  finished  article, 
ready  for  the  smoker.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
from  a  third  to  a  half  of  the  different  brands 
on  the  market  have  cork  tips.  These  must 
undergo  another  process  after  leaving  the 
machine. 

Recently,  when  his  business  had  to  make 
another  move  uptown,  a  prominent  New 
York  retail  merchant  remarked  that  "in  order 
to  remain  stationary  in  New  York,  one  must 
keep  moving."  In  much  the  same  manner,  it 
may  be  said  that,  now  we  have  reached  the 
detail  of  the  cork  tips,  this  story  of  the  ciga- 
rette, in  order  to  progress,  must  go  backward. 
We  must  see  where  the  cork  comes  from,  and 
we  must  study  its  manufacture  before  we  can 
get  an  adequate  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
process  of  cork  tipping. 

Most  of  the  world's  cork  supply  comes,  as 


80  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

is  generally  known,  from  sbuthern  Europe 
and  northern  Africa.  It  is  the 
How  the  outer  bark  of  the  cork  oak.  A 
Little  majority  of  the  large  factories 

Cork  Tips  that  convert  the  bark  of  the  cork 
Are  Made  trees  into  commercial  products 
are  in  Spain  and  Germany.  Thus 
it  happens  that  most  of  the  cork-sheets  from 
which  cigarette  tips  are  made  are  imported 
from  these  countries.  Lately  factories  in  the 
United  States  have,  with  considerable  suc- 
cess, begun  making  cork  sheets  on  a  compara- 
tively small  scale,  and  the  indications  are 
that  our  machinists  will  be  able  to  perfect  the 
process  to  such  an  extent  that,  no  matter 
what  may  happen  to  the  industry  because  of 
protracted  wars  in  Europe,  there  will  be  no 
shortage  in  our  supply. 

Now,  just  as  the  cigarette  paper  itself  is  the 
perfect,  most  delicate  product  of  the  paper- 
maker's  art,  so  these  cork  sheets,  that  are 
used  exclusively  for  tipping  cigarettes,  are 
the  most  perfect,  most  delicate  product  of  the 
cork  manipulator's  art.  Only  the  fine  bark 
from  the  lower  branches  of  cork  trees  fifty  or 
more  years  old  is  of  the  high  quality  demanded 
for  cigarette  tips. 

First  the  cork  is  cut  into  blpcks  about  the 
size  of  an  ordinary  hand  blotter,  about  four 
and  one-quarter  inches  wide  by  from  six  to  ten 
inches  long.  Razor-edged  knives,  or  planes, 
shave  from  these  blocks  filmy  layers  which 
are  as  gauzy  as  the  finest  tissue  paper,  and  no 
thicker.  Some  idea  of  the  thinness  of  these 


MAKING  THE  CIGARETTE  81 

cork  sheets  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact 
that,  to  make  a  pile  only  one  inch  in  height, 
three  hundred  and  fifty  sheets  are  required. 

In  the  same  manner  in  which  an  ordinary 
package  of  envelopes  is  held  together  by  a 
paper  band,  these  sheets  are  bound  together 
by  a  strip  of  paper  around  the  middle.  There 
are  from  200  to  250  sheets  in  each  bundle,  and 
it  is  in  these  individual  packages  that  the 
sheets  are  received  at  the  cigarette  factories 
in  the  United  States. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  world's  annual  con- 
sumption of  cork  tips  equals  a  quarter  of  a 
billion  square  feet  of  pure  cork  sheets,  and 
this  is  an  article  of  commerce  that  has  come 
into  use  solely  because  of  the  cigarette  in- 
dustry. 

The  fragile  sheets  are  backed  with  fine 
tissue-paper  in  the  cigarette  factories.  This 
is  called  maize  paper,  because  of  its  corn  color, 
which  is  practically  the  color  of  the  cork.  It 
comes  in  rolls  and  is  five  inches  wide,  or  about 
three-quarters  of  an  inch  wider  than  the  cork- 
sheets.  The  rolls  are  ten  inches  in  diameter 
and  when  it  is  said  that  one  of  these  small 
rolls  contains  enough  paper  to  back  the  cork 
for  384,000  cigarette  tips,  some  idea  of  the 
thinness  of  the  paper  may  be  gained,  together 
with  a  hint  of  the  perfection  of  utility  which 
the  manufacturer  has  learned. 

Girls  do  the  work  of  backing  the  cork- 
sheets.  They  operate  machines  that  carry 
the  paper  over  a  smooth  board  surface  and,  as 
it  passes  them,  the  workers  deftly  spread  the 
sheets  of  cork  upon  it.  The  cork  is  attached 


82  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

by  "sizing  applied  to  the  paper  from  rollers 
just  before  it  emerges  upon  the  board.  The 
rapidity  and  skill  developed  by  these  girls  in 
applying  the  cork  sheets  and  joining  them 
exactly  end  to  end  as  the  paper  is  continuously 
rolling  before  them  is  marvelous.  The  backed 
sheets  are  wound  upon  a  roller  at  the  further 
end  of  the  machine  as  they  leave  the  opera- 
tor's board. 

Now  the  paper  backed  cork  sheets  have  to 
be  cut  into  strips  the  width  of  the  cork  tip  as 
it  is  found  on  the  finished  cigarette.  The  ma- 
chine that  performs  this  task  is  called  the 
slitting  machine.  By  keen-edged  knives  each 
roll'is  slit  into  eight  strips  a  half-inch  in 
width.  These  strips  are  wound  at  high  speed 
upon  spools  into  rolls  about  seven  inches  in 
diameter.  They  are  then  ready  for  the  cork- 
tipping  process  and  are  taken  to  the  "tipping" 
room  as  needed.  Meanwhile  they  are  kept  in 
chambers  where  the  humidity  of  the  atmos- 
phere is  under  control,  so  that  the  cork  will 
not  dry  out  but  will  remain  firm  and  in  the 
best  possible  condition  for  the  use  to  which 
it  is  about  to  be  put. 

Remember  that  the  cigarettes  are  now  leav- 
ing the  cigarette  making  machine.  After  in- 
specting them,  the  girl  "catcher"  puts  the  per- 
fect ones  into  trays,  every  one  of  which  holds 
1,200.  These  in  turn  are  loaded  on  wheeled 
trucks,  each  holding  sixty-three  trays,  and 
are  wheeled  either  to  the  packing  department, 
or  first,  when  the  cigarettes  require  tips,  to 
the  cork-tipping  room. 

We  now  come  to  the  tipping  machine,  an- 


MAKING  THE  CIGARETTE  83 

other  of  the  wonderfully  intricate  mechanical 
devices  that  American  ingenuity 

has  added  to  this  enormous  in-        ™?ch™es 

That  Put 


on  the 


dustry.    Here  again  the  operator 
is  a  girl.    According  to  her  ex-        r 
pertness  and  the  type  of  ma-  *  llps 

chine  she  operates,  she  can  tip  from  eighty- 
five  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  cigarettes 
per  minute.  The  girls  who  operate  these 
cork  tipping  machines  are  responsible  for  the 
cleanliness  and  perfect  condition  in  which 
they  are  kept,  and  the  care  they  take  of  them 
is  characteristic  of  the  care  exercised  in  every 
department  of  a  modern  cigarette  factory. 

Among  the  various  types  of  tipping  ma- 
chines, that  known  as  the  "suction"  machine 
is  the  one  that  has  been  longest  in  use.  In 
this  the  cigarettes  are  put  into  a  brass  hopper, 
from  which  they  drop  upon  an  endless  steel 
chain  with  a  large  number  of  grooves  and  are 
carried  along  by  the  chain  to  their  ultimate 
destination. 

On  a  reel  on  the  top  of  the  machine,  one  of 
the  rolls  of  cork  strips  has  been  placed,  and 
the  cork  as  it  leaves  the  reel  feeds  over  a 
metal  wheel  with  a  knurled  surface  from 
which  pure  vegetable  paste  is  spread  upon  the 
paper  backing.  The  cork  journeys  to  a  knife 
that  cuts  it  to  the  needed  length  for  the  tip  of 
one  cigarette.  Just  as  the  cork  is  severed, 
a  gripper  seizes  it  and  drops  it  over  a  suction 
box.  This  is  a  curved  piece  of  metal  perfor- 
ated with  small  holes  through  which  air  is 
constantly  drawn  by  a  suction-pump.  The 
suction  draws  the  cork  firmly  down  upon  the 


84  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

metal,  and  it  is  at  this  point  that  one  end  of 
the  cigarette,  traveling  in  its  groove  on  the 
endless  steel  chain,  is  plunged  out  upon  the 
tiny  bit  of  cork.  A  revolving  brush  laps  first 
one  side  of  the  cork  and  then  the  other  over 
the  cigarette  and  pastes  it  firmly  upon  the 
cigarette  paper.  The  cork  is  cut  long  enough 
to  leave  a  small  flap,  and  the  last  operation  of 
the  brush  pastes  this  flap  down,  binding  the 
tip  together.  At  the  completion  of  this  deli- 
cate operation,  the  cigarette  is  thrown  back 
into  its  groove  on  the  endless  chain  by  means 
of  another  plunger. 

So  rapidly  is  all  this  done  that  the  eye  is  too 
slow  to  catch  the  sight  of  it.  The  endless  chain 
carries  the  tipped  cigarette  on  until  it  meets 
a  small  velvet  belt  running  above  the  steel 
belt  and  this  velvet  smooths  out  the  pasted 
cork  tip.  The  cigarettes  drop  into  hoppers, 
and  are  again  put  into  trays  holding  1,200  each 
and  taken  to  the  packing-room. 

There  has  been  put  into  many  factories  a 
more  recently  invented  tipping  machine 
which  pastes  the  tips  upon  the  cigarettes 
without  the  use  of  suction.  The  cork  tips, 
after  the  paste  is  applied,  are  here  carried  to 
the  cigarette  around  which  they  are  to  be 
pasted,  by  two  small  steel  rods.  These  rods, 
as  they  go  flying  back  and  forth,  remind  one 
of  the  rapid  antennae  of  a  hungry  grasshop- 
per eagerly  devouring  food. 

There  is,  I  should  like  to  submit,  a  certain 
poetic  justice  in  this  resemblance.  You  will 
recall  what  I  said  in  Chapter  I  about  the 
word  "cigarette"  coming,  through  the  French, 


THE  CORK  TIPPING  DEPARTMENT 

The  machines  shown  in  these  two  photographs  are  of  the  latest  stand- 
ard type  that  are  supplanting  the  "suction"  machines  described  in  this 
chapter.  In  the  top  picture  note  how  the  strip  of  cork,  as  thin  as  tissue 
paper,  feeds  from  the  spool  at  the  top  into  the  center  of  the  machine.  A 
knife  cuts  it  the  desired  length,  paste  is  applied,  two  clawlike  rods  seize 
the  cork  tip,  bring  it  forward  and  paste  it  around  the  end  of  the  cigarette 
as  it  travels  in  a  groove  in  an  endless  metal  belt  at  the  rate  of  about  two 
cigarettes  per  second.  The  bottom  picture  shows  the  fronts  of  the  machines. 
The  untipped  cigarettes  feed  from  a  metal  hopper  into  the  grooves  in  the 
belt.  The  operator  in  the  foreground  sees  that  all  the  name  designs  on 
the  paper  wrappers  are  turned  upward  so  that  the  pasted  flaps  on  the  cork 
tips  will  be  uniformly  on  one  side  of  the  cigarettes.  In  trays  of  1200  the 
tipped  cigarettes  are  carried  to  the  packing-room.  Stools  or  chairs  are 
provided  for  all  employees  who  wish  to  sit  while  working. 


MAKING  THE  CIGARETTE  85 

from  the  Spanish  word  "cigarral."*  That 
word  means  "garden,"  but,  long  before  it 
meant  "garden,"  its  root  meant  only  "grass- 
hopper". It  was  because,  in  the  Spain  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  grasshoppers  were  always 
found  in  larger  number  in  gardens  than  any- 
where else,  that  those  gardens  were  at  last 
called  "cigarrals,"  meaning  the  places  where 
grasshoppers  were  most  abundant.  A  ma- 
chine that  reminds  one  of  a  grasshopper  has, 
therefore,  a  philological,  as  well  as  an  indus- 
trial reason  for  its  place  in  a  cigarette  factory. 

Whatever  sort  of  tipping  machine  is  used, 
however,  the  girl  who  operates  it  must  begin 
to  clean  it  as  soon  as  it  is  idle.  For  this 
she  is  provided  with  a  compressed-air  tube, 
with  which  she  blows  out  every  particle  of 
tobacco  dust  that  may  have  gathered.  Every 
portion  of  the  shining  metal  is  thoroughly 
cleaned  and  polished  once  each  week,  and  the 
same  scrupulous  care  is  taken  of  all  the  ma- 
chinery used  in  the  various  departments. 

Fearing  that  some  readers  may  think  me 
unduly  enthusiastic  about  the  cleanliness  of 
modern  cigarette  factories  I  am        _          . 
going  to  take  the  liberty  of  quot-  .      KeP°r*  W 


ing  from  an  article  by  Alfred  W. 

McCann,  published  in  the  New  ... 

York  Globe  and  Commercial  Ad- 

vertiser.   Those  who  have  followed  Mr.  Mc- 

Cann's  investigations  and  writings  on  pure 

food  matters  know  that  his  integrity  is  beyond 

question.     His  pure  food  reports  and  impure 

*Cf.  the  French  dg&le. 


86  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

food  exposes  have  attracted  nation-wide  at- 
tention and  have  given  great  impetus  to  the 
national  crusade  for  pure  foods  and  sanitary 
manufacturing  conditions. 

He  visited  and  made  a  thorough  inspection 
of  a  factory  in  West  Twenty-seventh  Street, 
New  York,  where  some  of  the  most  famous 
brands  of  Turkish  tobacco  cigarettes  are 
made.  Following  are  three  paragraphs  in  his 
article  describing  what  he  saw  and  giving  his 
deductions : 

The  food  factory  exhibitions  which  it  has  been  my 
unhappy  lot  to  witness,  make  me  want  to  cry  out  to 
the  whole  food  world,  "Go  and  see  for  yourself  what 
your  factories  ought  to  be.  Learn  to  smoke  ciga- 
rettes if  it  will  help  you  to  get  at  the  truth.  But  do 
anything  that  will  get  you  in  touch  with  an  object 
lesson  so  expressive  of  common  decency  that  you 
will  go  back  home  ashamed  and  kick  up  a  reform." 

Everywhere  you  find  in  this  cigarette  factory  evi- 
dences of  refinement  which,  alas,  should  not  stop 
there.  White  walls  and  ceilings,  floors  as  clean  as 
freshly  chiseled  marble,  cutting  machines  that  seem 
to  say,  "We  were  made  for  the  preparation  of  food, 
but  somehow  got  sidetracked  and  find  ourselves  cut- 
ting Turkish  tobacco,"  wrapping  machines  that  take 
away  from  the  human  hand  all  detail  and  leave  noth- 
ing to  human  supervision  but  the  watchfulness  of 
trained  eyes,  contribute  to  a  poem  of  sanitation 
themes  that  are  found,  alas !  too  rarely  where  human- 
ity has  a  right  to  look  for  them. 

I  urge  health  commissioners,  food  inspectors,  sani- 
tary experts,  and  disciples  of  common  decency  to 
visit  the  factory  and  see  what  can  be  accomplished 
where  men  are  willing  to  look  upon  cleanliness  as 
something  little  short  of  godliness.  * 


*New  York    Globe  and   Commercial  Advertiser.       Issue  of 
February  4,  1916. 


CHAPTER  VI 

PACKAGES  AND  PACKING 

Evolution   of   the    Sealed   Package — Machine   Prints    25,000 

Bands   per    Hour — Ingenious   Cup-forming    Devices — 

Wrapping  Cigarettes  in  Foil — Picture  Inserts — Care 

Taken    to    Protect    Products — Pioneers   in 

Sanitary  Package  Goods  System. 

WHEN  so  much  care  has  been  taken, 
and  when  so  much  money  has  been 
spent  upon  the  conversion  of  the  to- 
bacco into  cigarette  form,  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  the  manufacturer  spares  any  pains 
to  insure  the  cigarette's  progress  to  the  re- 
tailer— and  so  to  the  ultimate  consumer — in 
the  best  possible  condition.  Nor  are  any  such 
pains  spared. 

Consequently,  in  dealing  with  packages 
and  packing,  this  chapter  treats  of  two  of  the 
most  important  developments  in  modern  in- 
dustrial history:  the  application  of  efficiency 
methods  to  mechanical  and  human  labor  in 
the  handling  of  materials,  and  the  supplant- 
ing of  wasteful  and  insanitary  ways  of  pack- 
ing and  marketing  with  the  economical  and 
sanitary  sealed  package  system. 

Especially  in  respect  to  the  containers  of 
their  manufactured  materials,  cigarette  man- 
ufacturers were  pioneers  in  these  matters  of 
efficiency  and  have  remained  among  the  lead- 
ers. 

Package  making  was  a  crude  affair  in  the 
early  days  of  the  manufacture  of  cigarettes, 
which  were  then  mere  rough-and-ready  paper 

87 


88  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

tubes  filled  with  tobacco.  Those  were  the 
days  when  we  were  just  graduating  from  the 
era  of  the  home  factory  and  the  wayside 
water-wheel  mill;  when  products  of  the  soil 
were  made  ready  for  use  either  in  the  home 
or  by  being  hauled  in  bulk  to  mill  or  factory, 
again  hauled  away  in  bulk,  and  sold  by  the 
retailer  in  bulk. 

The  history  of  the  individual  paper  con- 
tainer is  practically  coincidental  with  the  his- 
tory of  the  modern  cigarette,  and  that  goes 
back  over  a  span  of  less  than  half  a  century. 

The  year  1850  had  come  and  gone  before  a 
container  for  retailing  bulk  material  meant 

_    .    .  more  than  a  cloth  or  paper  bag, 

Evolution         and  h  wag  a  long  time  be£ore  the 

q  I*  mind  of  man  could  grasp  the 

p  f  idea  of  its  being  more  than  one 

*age  simple  evolution  of  that  paper 
bag — a  one-piece  paper  container  flapped  over 
at  the  top. 

When  cigarettes  were  packed  in  such  man- 
ner waste  resulted,  because  the  tobacco,  with 
nothing  but  thin  paper  around  it  and  prac- 
tically exposed  at  the  top,  quickly  dried  and 
worked  out  of  the  cigarettes  and,  when  it  was 
being  carried  about,  out  of  the  loosely  made 
container  and  into  the  pocket  of  the  smoker. 

Wrapping  the  individual  bundles  of  ciga- 
rettes in  foil  before  inserting  in  the  con- 
tainer was  the  first  great  step  forward  in 
packing.  This  helped  to  keep  the  cigarette  in 
good  condition,  but  did  little  toward  eliminat- 
ing waste,  and  nothing  at  all  toward  increas- 
ing convenience. 


PACKAGES  AND  PACKING  89 

It  remained  for  the  next  evolution  to  revo- 
lutionize the  cigarette  business  and  to  do  it 
practically  overnight.  This  was  accom- 
plished by  the  introduction  of  what  is  known 
as  the  "shell  and  slide"  box. 

Little  do  we,  who  daily  see  many  of  this 
sort  of  handy  boxes  used  for  all  sorts  of  goods, 
think  of  the  stride  in  merchandising  made  by 
that  simple  invention.  At  last  a  man's  mind 
had  grasped  the  idea  that  a  container  could  be 
more  than  a  mere  one-piece  bag;  that  it  could 
be  one  box  within  another — a  container  made 
so  that  it  would  slide  into  a  shell,  or  another 
slightly  larger  container.  The  slide  of  this  im- 
proved cigarette  box  had  a  flap  that  folded 
over  the  cigarettes.  The  foil  wrapper  was  re- 
tained. 

Here  at  last  was  a  box  that  not  only 
kept  the  goods  in  perfect  condition,  but  was 
at  once  a  great  convenience  and  an  eliminator 
of  waste.  The  handiness  of  it  converted  to- 
bacco users  by  the  legion.  They  had  held 
aloof  from  the  cigarette  for  several  reasons; 
but  it  is  now  a  question  whether  their  chief 
objection  to  the  cigarette  did  not  lie  in  the 
faulty  packing  about  which  I  have  just  written. 
Certainly  there  was  now  an  almost  immediate 
jump  from  millions  to  billions  in  the  annual 
sale  of  cigarettes  in  the  United  States. 

That  was  a  boom  time.  It  is  on  record  that 
the  largest  manufacturer  of  popular  priced 
cigarettes,  for  several  years  after  the  intro- 
duction of  the  "shell  and  slide"  box,  never 
caught  up  with  his  orders,  despite  the  fact 


90  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

that  he  constantly  put  in  new  machines  and 
enlarged  his  plant  as  rapidly  as  his  conserva- 
tism would  permit.  He  did  not  believe,  and 
often  said  so,  that  the  ever  increasing  demand 
could  last.  If  it  had  not  been  for  his  timidity, 
his  output  might  have  been  many  times  mul- 
tiplied. He  retired  when  he  reached  fifty 
years  of  age.  He  had  amassed  a  fortune  of 
millions,  yet  the  belief  was  forced  upon  his  as- 
sociates that,  had  he  taken  full  advantage  of 
the  opportunities  he  possessed  by  being  the 
manufacturer  of  the  most  popular  brands  on 
the  market,  he  would  have  built  up  one  of  the 
largest  personal  fortunes  in  the  history  of  our 
country. 

That,  however,  is  getting  ahead  of  our 
story.  We  must  forget  high  finance  and  think, 
rather,  of  the  more  sordid  routine  of  the  ciga- 
rette factory's  packing-rooms. 

Let  us  look  first  at  the  making  of  the  boxes 
into  which  the  cigarettes  are  to  be  packed. 
The  manufacture  and  printing  of  the  ornately 
labeled  shells,  and  what  are  known  as  the 
"cups"  which  now  are  used  as  the  containers 
for  the  "twenty  in  a  package"  cigarettes,  are 
done  in  large  establishments  outside  of  the 
cigarette  factories  per  se.  For  the  most  part 
they  are  printed  in  New  York  and  Chicago, 
Rochester  (N.  Y.)>  Richmond,  and  New 
Haven. 

They  are  sent  to  the  factories  in  packages 
of  sizes  meeting  the  requirements  of  the  pack- 
ing machines  on  which  they  are  to  be  used. 
They  are  not  only  printed,  but  are  scored  and 


PACKAGES  AND  PACKING  91 

cut  so  that  they  will  bend  into  the  form  in 
which  they  will  ultimately  be  used. 

The  large  cigarette  factories  now  make  and 
print  their  own  slides,  as  well  as  the  bands 
that  are  pasted  around  the  cigarette  packages. 
The  slides  are  cut  from  large  pieces  of  card- 
board, printed  and  scored  for  bending,  all  on 
a  single  machine,  coming  out  in  long  strips 
ready  for  the  packing  machines. 

The  machine  that  prints  the  bands  is  really 
a  high  speed,  two  color  printing  press.  The 
narrow  strips  of  paper  which  are 
wound  into  rolls  on  spools  are 
automatically  fed  over  type-dies 
revolving  on  a  rapidly  whirling 
wheel  which  prints  the  bands  in 
two  colors  at  the  rate  of  25,000  per  hour.  As 
they  reappear,  these  long  strips  of  printed 
bands  are  again  wound  upon  spools,  later  to 
be  pasted  around  the  cigarette  boxes.  This 
is  done  either  by  hand  or,  more  often,  by  ma- 
chinery. 

Oval  cigarettes  are  packed  into  their  boxes 

>by  hand,  and  this  shape  includes  all  Turkish 
and  so-called  "Egyptian"  cigarettes — mostly 
all  the  cork-tipped  cigarettes  on  the  market. 
No  machine  has  yet  been  invented  that  will 
do  the  work  economically,  and  every  at- 
tempted invention  has  failed  for  the  reason 
that  the  oval  shape  does  not  lend  itself  to 
rolling.  That  this  is  a  passing  difficulty  seems 
certain,  however.  With  machinery  now  ac- 
complishing most  of  what  was  formerly  done 
by  hand  labor,  and  accomplishing  it  better,  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  it  will  not  be  long  before 


92  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

practical  machines  for  this  process  will  have 
been  perfected. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  happy  looking  girls 
that  sit  at  the  long  tables  in  the  well  venti- 
lated rooms  packing  these  oval  cigarettes 
seem  to  be  doing  their  work  at  a  satisfactory 
rate.  Six  hundred  cigarettes  are  placed  be- 
fore them  on  tables,  and  the  shells  and  slides, 
or  hinge  boxes  as  the  case  may  be,  are  brought 
to  them  in  separate  bundles  or  cartons. 

Each  girl  handles  and  inspects  the  cigarettes 
separately,  throwing  out  any  that  are  imper- 
fect. She  puts  the  perfect  ones  into  the  slides 
or  boxes  in  the  requisite  number,  rolls  them  so 
that  the  monograms  or  labels  will  be  facing 
upward,  folds  the  slide  together  if  it  is  a  "shell 
and  slide"  container  she  is  filling,  shoves  the 
filled  slide  into  the  shell  and  folds  down  the 
flap,  completing  the  package.  A  good  packer 
does  this  easily  at  the  rate  of  300  boxes  of  ten 
each — 3,000  cigarettes — every  hour. 

On  the  other  hand,  since  they  are  easily 
rolled,  round  cigarettes  of  the  popular  kinds 
that  constitute  the  vast  majority  of  the  an- 
nual American  output  are  packed  by  ma- 
chinery which  does  the  work  with  many 
times  the  speed  with  which  it  can  be  per- 
formed by  hand. 

A  large  proportion  of  these  are  now  put  up 
in  packages  of  twenty,  which  retail  for  ten  or 
fifteen  cents,  and  the  making  of  these  pack- 
ages and  filling  them  has  developed  some  of 
the  most  ingenious  machinery  of  which  our 
factories  can  boast. 


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PACKAGES  AND  PACKING  93 

"Cups"  is  the  term  by  which  the  outside 
containers  are  known  to  the  trade.  As  has 
been  noted,  the  sheets  of  paper 
from  which  they  are  made  come  ingenious 
to  the  factories  cut  to  size,  scored  „  .p~ 
and  ready  printed.  There  they  forming 
first  go  to  the  cup-forming  ma-  Devices 

chines,  which  are  operated  by  girls.  Each 
machine  can  turn  out  23,000  cups  in  an  ordi- 
nary working-day. 

A  receptacle  filled  with  pure  paste  kept  at 
the  right  degree  of  heat  by  an  electric  stove 
underneath,  is  on  one  side  of  the  machine. 
Rollers  revolve  through  this  mass  of  paste, 
and  from  them  the  paste  is  taken  up  on  the 
soles  of  two  metal  "feet"  that  fly  back  and 
forth  like  a  shuttle.  On  the  way  back  from 
the  rollers,  the  "feet"  plunge  down  upon  the 
inner,  unprinted  side  of  one  of  the  sheets  of 
cup  paper,  which  sticks  to  them  and  is  lifted 
to  one  of  four  revolving  cup-forms  on  the 
machine.  The  paste  from  the  "feet"  adheres 
to  the  edge  of  the  paper  which,  as  the  "feet" 
fly  back  for  another  sheet,  is  grasped  by  a 
"finger,"  which  wraps  it  around  the  cup- 
form,  pasting  the  paper  together  lengthwise. 

This  cup-form  travels  upward  automatic- 
ally for  a  quarter  of  a  revolution,  and  there 
stops  for  a  moment,  while  four  clawlike 
pieces  of  steel  fold  one  end  of  the  paper  to- 
gether two  ways.  Another  quarter-revolu- 
tion brings  it  to  a  steel  presser  which  presses 
the  folds  firmly  down  and  seals  this  end,  form- 
ing the  bottom  of  the  cup.  Turning  another 
quarter-revolution,  now  pointing  directly 


94  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

downward,  two  claws  slide  the  completed  cup 
from  the  mould,  which  then  moves  on  to  the 
point  where  the  "feet"  carry  another  sheet  of 
cup  paper  upon  it.  So  the  process  keeps  on 
hour  after  hour. 

Every  movement  of  the  machine  is  made  by 
an  intricate  series  of  cams.  Nowhere  in  the 
entire  contrivance  is  there  a  single  gear  or 
pulley. 

Just  below  the  ceiling  of  the  room  on  the 
floor  underneath  the  one  in  which  are  these 
cup-forming  machines  is  a  long  trough.  As 
the  cups  slide  off  the  machines,  they  drop 
through  into  this  trough,  in  the  bottom  of 
which  are  doors.  Through  these  doors  the 
cups,  automatically  shoved  along  the  trough, 
drop  into  large  wire  receptacles  above  the 
machines  that  insert  the  cigarettes  in  them. 

As  they  are  brought  to  one  of  these  filling 
machines,  the  cigarettes  are  put  into  a  hopper 
holding  about  2,500.  From  this  they  roll 
down  an  incline.  At  the  same  instant,  from 
underneath  the  machine,  paper-backed  foil  is 
fed  from  a  roll  nine  inches  in  diameter,  con- 
taining, when  full,  eighteen  pounds  of  foil. 

On  a  laterally  revolving  metal  disk  are 
eight  box-like  containers  open  at  the  top.  A 

...        .  knife  plunging  upward  cuts  off  a 

Wrapping         piece  Qf  the  foil  tQ  ^  length  re_ 

*  quired     for    the     wrapping     of 

twenty  cigarettes,  and  this  falls 
on  one  of  the  containers  while 
the  disk  stops  for  a  fraction  of  a  second.  In 
that  fraction  of  a  second  the  twenty  cigarettes 
are  released  at  the  foot  of  the  incline  by  three 


FORMING  THE  "CUPS"  IN  WHICH  THE  TWENTY-IN- 
A-PACKAGE  CIGARETTES  ARE  PACKED 

This  is  one  of  the  most  intricate  machines  developed  in  the  cigarette  in- 
dustry, each  machine,  operated  by  a  girl,  forming  23,000  cups  per  day.  At 
the  top  is  a  close  view  of  the  part  of  the  machine  that  forms  and  pastes 
the  ends  of  the  cups,  as  described  in  the  opposite  and  following  pages. 


PACKAGES  AND  PACKING  95 

distinct  openings  of  a  trap,  the  first  freeing 
seven  cigarettes,  the  second  seven  and  the 
third  six.  These  fall  on  the  foil  in  three  lay- 
ers, and  the  cigarettes,  with  the  foil  beneath 
them,  are  pressed  down  into  the  container. 

Now  the  disk  starts  moving  again.  Swiftly 
a  girl  who  sits  beside  it  places  on  the  ciga- 
rettes any  inserts  that  are  to  go  into  the  pack- 
age. The  container  whirls  past  her  until  it 
reaches  a  squeezing  arrangement  that  presses 
against  the  sides  of  the  bundle  and  at  the 
same  time  presses  the  cigarettes  down,  giving 
the  finished  form  to  the  package.  A  little 
farther  on,  an  ironing  contrivance  folds  the 
foil  over  the  top  of  the  cigarettes,  and,  still 
farther  along,  two  separate  processes  fold  the 
foil  over  the  ends. 

Now  comes  the  last  process.  A  clawlike 
carrier  removes  the  completed  foil  package 
from  the  container  and  carries  it  to  a  point 
where  it  meets  a  plunger,  which  forces  it  into 
one  of  the  labeled  paper  cups  that  has  been 
loosed  from  the  big  wire  hopper  above. 

Is  all  this  dry  in  the  reading  and  slow  in  the 
telling?  If  so,  it  fails  sadly  to  envisage  the 
actuality.  In  the  real  event,  the  movement  is 
sufficiently  swift  and  exciting  to  interest  any- 
one fortunate  enough  to  witness  it.  Each  ma- 
chine has  a  capacity  for  packing  36,000  ciga- 
rettes an  hour,  and  the  average  output,  allow- 
ing for  delays  of  all  kinds,  is  15,000  packages, 
or  300,000  cigarettes  every  day. 

Nor  do  the  human  helpers  lag  so  far  behind. 
As  the  packages  come  from  the  machine,  they 
fall  on  a  moving  belt  and  go  to  tables, 


96  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

where  girls  seal  them  -with  colored  paper 
bands.  So  expert  are  these  girls  in  this  work 
that  two  of  them,  with  the  help  of  another — 
who  divides  her  time  between  two  machines 
-—can  seal  the  daily  output  of  each  machine: 
the  entire  15,000  packages. 

Similar  in  operation  to  this  machine  just  de- 
scribed is  that  which  packs  the  ten  round  ciga- 
rettes into  the  highly  popular  five-cent  boxes. 
There  is  only  one  important  point  of  differ- 
ence. This  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  latter  ma- 
chine, in  addition  to  packing  the  cigarettes, 
makes,  from  long  strips  of  pasteboard  fed 
from  a  roll,  the  slides  into  which  the  ciga- 
rettes are  packed. 

In  two  layers  of  five  each,  the  cigarettes 
are  deposited  upon  the  foil,  and  the  foil  is 
squeezed,  or  "locked"  (as  they  call  this  oper- 
ation in  the  factory),  immediately.  The  foil- 
covered  bundle,  which  is  carried  on  a  revolv- 
ing metal  disk,  is  then  plunged  into  the  slide, 
and  this  in  turn,  by  another  swift  operation, 
is  plunged  into  the  shell.  The  flap  is  auto- 
matically folded  over  the  cigarettes,  and  a 
traveling  belt  brings  out  the  completed  oack- 
age. 

Here  again  enters  the  inspector.  She  is  a 
girl  operator  with  keen  vision,  who  overlooks 
the  foil  packages  as  they  pass  before  her  on 
the  metal  disk  and,  detecting  any  flaw,  deftly 
picks  the  defective  package  from  its  con- 
tainer and  throws  it  aside.  At  all  stages  of 
the  manufacture,  indeed,  the  operators  act  as 
inspectors,  and  there  is  no  chance  of  any  but 
perfect  products  leaving  the  factories.  The 


FILLING  TWENTY-CIGARETTES-IN-A-PACKAGE 
"CUPS" 

The  cups  fall  into  the  large  wire  hoppers,  shown  in  these  two  views, 
from  the  cup-forming  machines  on  the  floor  above.  From  the  metal  hopper 
at  the  right  of  each  filling  machine  the  cigarettes  roll  down  upon  tinfoil 
that  is  fed  in  below,  first  two  rows  of  seven  cigarettes  and  then  a  row  of 
six.  A  revolving  metal  disk  carries  them  along  in  forms.  As  they  pass 
before  her  the  operator  inserts  coupons,  then  ingenious  devices  fold  the 
foil  over  the  cigarettes  above  and  at  the  ends,  compress  them  and  plunge 
the  foil  packages  into  the  cups,  which  in  turn  are  folded  at  the  ends,  and 
the  completed  packages  emerge  upon  a  carrier  belt.  Each  machine  has  a 
capacity  of  15,UOO  packages,  or  300,000  cigarettes  per  day. 


PACKAGES  AND  PACKING  97 

filled  boxes  shoot  out  of  each  of  these  ma- 
chines at  the  rate  of  2,280  an  hour. 

For  the  past  thirty  or  forty  years  "picture 
inserts" — that  is,  pictures  inserted  in  the  box 
— have  from  time  to  time  been 
a  distinguishing  feature  of  the  Picture 

five  -  cents  -  a  -  box  cigarettes.  Inserts  of 
These  pictures  are  of  many  ^ucational 
sorts,  often  good  portraits  of 
professional  baseball  players,  et  cetera,  and  in 
many  cases  they  are  pictures  of  real  educa- 
tional value. 

In  fact  it  is  the  general  practice  now  for  the 
large  manufacturers  to  try  to  make  of  these 
inserts  real  educational  forces.  Among  them 
are  pictures  of  the  flags  of  nations  in  their 
correct  colors,  views  of  cities  and  public  build- 
ings, battleships,  the  uniforms  of  army  and 
navy  officers  of  the  different  nations,  also  in 
correct  colors;  and  the  corporation  that  man- 
ufactures the  oldest  and  largest  selling  of  all 
the  brands  has,  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the 
great  European  conflict,  been  giving  to  the 
purchasers  of  these  five-cent  cigarettes  auth- 
entic pictures  in  three  and  four  colors  of 
scenes  of  the  great  war,  each  of  which  is  in- 
tended to  be  instructive,  and  which,  as  a  ser- 
ies, are  intended  to  make  a  complete  running 
pictorial  history  of  the  war. 

The  printing  of  these  inserts  is  done  on  con- 
tract by  big  color  printing  concerns  outside 
the  factories  and  is  in  itself  a  tremendous  in- 
dustry, annually  producing  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions of  these  little  cards. 

After  the  packing  machines  have  done  their 


98  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

work,  the  cups  and  boxes  are  taken  to  another 
department  where  the  bands  are  pasted  upon 
them,  and  finally  the  United  States  internal 
revenue  stamps  are  attached.  These  stamps 
come  in  perforated  sheets  of  a  hundred  each. 

Now  the  preparations  are  made  for  ship- 
ment to  the  retailer.  The  packages  are  put 
into  cartons  of  various  sizes  and  each  carton 
is  wrapped  by  hand  in  moisture-proof  and 
germ-proof  glassine  paper  and  firmly  sealed. 
These  cartons  are  wheeled  on  trucks  to  the 
shipping  department,  where  they  are  packed 
into  wooden  or  paper-board  boxes  and  then 
are  ready  to  forward  to  every  quarter  of  the 
globe. 

One  might  suppose  that  here  at  last  the  vig- 
ilance of  the  big  producer  comes  to  an  end. 
Not  at  all.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
Great  Care  the  practice  of  tfce  largest  ciga- 
laken  to  T^te  manufacturing  corpora- 
Frotect  tion^  whose  methods  were 

studied,  to  make  of  its  salesmen 
permanent  inspectors,  and  to  send  them  regu- 
larly over  their  routes  to  look  frequently  at 
the  goods  on  the  retailers'  shelves  and  make 
sure  that  they  are  always  fresh  and  in  good 
condition. 

In  preceding  chapters  I  have  noted  the 
great  susceptibility  of  tobacco  to  climatic  and 
atmospheric  conditions,  and  this  sensitiveness 
characterizes  it  in  its  manufactured  state  also. 
The  need  of  educating  retailers  in  proper 
methods  of  keeping  cigarettes  so  that  their 
quality  will  not  be  impaired  will  be  under- 
stood when  that  characteristic  is  remembered. 


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PACKAGES  AND  PACKING  99 

There  remains  the  question  of  wages.  All 
of  the  employees  in  the  various  departments 
of  the  factories,  the  machine  operators,  cork- 
tippers,  packers,  inserters,  sealers,  stampers, 
et  cetera,  are  paid  either  entirely  by  piece- 
work, or  by  minimum  wages  plus  premiums 
based  on  piece-work.  Their  pay-checks  prove 
that  the  many  thousands  of  "cigarette  girls" 
who  find  employment  the  year  round  are 
among  the  best  compensated  wage  earners  in 
the  vast  army  of  working  women  in  the 
United  States;  and  when  the  factories  are 
running  full  time,  as  they  usually  are  in  these 
days  of  phenomenal  cigarette  consumption, 
the  more  expert  among  them  make  unusual 
incomes.  The  making  or  handling  of  a  thou- 
sand cigarettes  is  the  unit  upon  which  all 
compensation  is  based. 

Now,  to  all  this,  what  is  the  relation  of  the 
consumer?  In  the  first  place,  it  is  a  very  close 
and  vital  one.  Because  of  the  p. 
care  with  which  cigarettes  are  ™neers  in 
packed,  the  consumer  really 
deals  directly  with  the  producer.  ^  p 
He  buys  the  goods  in  their  orig-  Goods  ysi 
inal  package,  the  tobacco  never  having  been 
touched  by  anyone  from  the  beginning  of  the 
process  of  manufacture,  through  the  packing 
and  shipping,  until  the  cigarettes  are  taken 
from  their  container  by  the  fingers  of  the  per- 
son who  is  to  smoke  them. 

In  fact,  it  is  my  opinion,  based  on  knowl- 
edge extending  over  many  years  of  investiga- 
tion of  manufacturing  and  retailing,  that  ciga- 
rettes may  be  classed  as  about  the  purest  of 


100  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

pure  food  products.  Their  manufacturers,  be- 
sides being  pioneers  in  the  package  goods  sys- 
tem, have  always  in  this  respect  kept  ahead  of 
the  times. 

Cigarettes  in  dust-proof  and  mould-proof 
foil  containers  inside  of  paper  slides  and  shells 
securely  fastened  by  bands — cigarettes  put  in- 
to cartons  so  that  no  impurity  could  possibly 
reach  them  during  transit  or  handling — such 
cigarettes  were  on  the  shelves  of  the  general 
stores  many  years  before  the  proprietors  of 
those  stores  stopped  scooping  loose  bulk 
crackers  from  a  barrel  where  they  absorbed 
the  impurities  of  a  dust-  and  breath-laden  at- 
mosphere. They  were  there  before  the  store- 
keeper had  stopped  chasing  the  sleepy  cat 
from  its  bed  in  the  bag  of  dried  peaches  in 
order  to  perform  his  function  of  retailer.  And 
they  were  there  in  the  days  when  coffee  was 
scooped  from  open  bags  with  a  scoop  bor- 
rowed from  the  sticky,  open,  brown-sugar 
barrel,  into  scales  reeking  with  the  remains  of 
the  salt-pork  or  dripping  salt-fish  that  had 
been  weighed  on  them  five  minutes  previ- 
ously. 

Tobacco  retailing  has,  moreover,  become 
specialized  in  recent  years.  Now  the  cigarette 
shelves  of  the  retail  tobacconist  are  as  neat 
and  inviting  as  the  pantry  and  preserve 
shelves  of  your  grandmother.  They  are  quite 
that,  and  they  are  ten  times  as  radiant  because 
of  their  neat,  multi-colored  and  gilded  labels. 

Anybody  that  has  studied  American  food 
industries — excellent  as  those  industries  are 
— and  has  then  investigated  the  large  ciga- 


PACKAGES  AND  PACKJJSI3  i  '.'/,  ifll 

'       ^     ^ 

rette  factories  of  this  country,  will  admit  the 
equality  in  purity  of  the  cigarette.  No  cereal 
breakfast  foods,  no  confections,  no  crackers 
nor  biscuits  are  today  packed  with  more  care 
and  more  protection  of  their  purity,  than  are 
cigarettes. 

Consider  again  the  make-up  of  an  ordinary 
cigarette  package.  First  there  is  the  cigarette 
paper  around  the  tobacco,  which  is  the  ingred- 
ient that  it  is  the  object  to  protect,  with  all  of 
its  sweetness,  aroma  and  good  smoking  qual- 
ity preserved.  Then  there  is  the  foil,  itself 
backed  with  paper,  wrapped  around  the  ciga- 
rettes and  folded  over  their  ends  at  both  top 
and  bottom.  Added  to  this  is  the  pasteboard 
slide  with  its  flap  folding  over  the  top,  which 
in  turn  is  put  into  the  pasteboard  shell  and 
then  sealed  with  a  band.  Then  the  indi- 
vidual packages, are  put  into  heavier  paste- 
board cartons  and  these  are  encased  in  the 
dust,  germ,  mould  and  moisture-defying  glas- 
sine  paper.  It  is  obvious  that  the  smoker  must 
be  buying  cigarettes  that  are  in  an  impreg- 
nable condition. 

Millions  of  dollars  of  added  expense  is  what 
all  this  has  meant  to  the  manufacturer.  But 
if  for  no  other  reason  than  to  render  his  profit- 
earning  permanent  in  a  competitive  field,  he 
has  always  been  looking  toward  a  pure  product 
ideal,  and  has  willingly  stood  the  cost  involved. 
Therefore,  it  was  not  enough  for  the  manu- 
facturer that  his  cigarettes  should  be  made 
in  sanitary  factories  and  shipped  from  them 
in  perfect  condition.  He  saw  to  it  that  they 
cached  the  consumers  in  just  as  good  con- 


102;'.'  ;  VT&E  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

dition.  He  did  not  propose  that  they  should 
deteriorate  in  transit,  or  by  being  unprotected 
in  the  retailer's  store,  or  that  there  should  be 
waste  anywhere  along  the  line,  which  would 
result  in  the  ultimate  purchaser  not  getting 
all  that  he  paid  for. 

He  made  his  wares  sound  articles  of  com- 
merce— just  so  many  in  every  package,  to  be 
sold  in  the  original  container  at  a  uniform 
price,  and  every  grain  of  the  tobacco  to  remain 
in  each  cigarette  until  taken  from  the  package 
by  the  smoker. 

More  than  that,  on  every  package  of  his 
cigarettes  the  manufacturer  puts  his  label  in 
the  form  of  a  trademark,  a  brand  and  the  des- 
ignation of  the  factory  at  which  the  cigarettes 
are  made.  There  is  nothing  anonymous  about 
them.  The  jobber  and  the  retailer  are  merely 
agents.  It  is  the  producer  who  makes  himself 
directly  responsible  to  the  consumer. 

That  concern  which  markets  an  advertised 
article  of  commerce  put  up  in  a  labeled  pack- 
age may  not  rashly  risk  its  reputation  and 
good  will  by  taking  chances  with  goods  of  in- 
ferior quality  or  of  short  weight.  It  has  too 
much  at  stake. 

The  large  cigarette  manufacturer  spends 
millions  of  dollars  a  year  to  bring  his  product 
to  the  high  state  of  perfection  reached  by 
American  cigarettes.  In  the  carefully  sealed 
package  he  at  once  protects  the  consumer  and 
the  reputation  of  his  jealously  guarded  brand 
and  trademark.  His  label  on  the  sealed  pack- 
age is  his  guaranty  of  the  contents. 

It  has  been,  as  I  have  said,  an  expensive 


PACKAGES  AND  PACKING  103 

course.  Manufacturers  without  large  capital 
could  not  have  afforded  it;  but  the  big  ciga- 
rette manufacturer  could  afford  nothing  less, 
and  results  have  justified  his  actions.  His 
every  step  forward  to  his  ideal  of  a  pure  prod- 
uct has  invariably  been  followed  by  increased 
sales. 


CHAPTER  VII 

CIGARETTE  PAPER 

Purity  of  Ingredients  of  Cigarette  Paper—Making  Cigarette 
Paper  a  Real  Art— Absolute  Cleanliness 
Is  a  Necessity. 

AUTHOR'S  NOTE.— The  information  in  this  chapter  was 
furnished  by  Thomas  J.  Keenan,  F.  C.  S.,  Editor  of  Paper, 
who  is  an  authority  on  all  kinds  of  paper  and  their  manu- 
facture. 

IN  writing  a  book  upon  a  subject  that  is 
more  or  less  in  debate,  it  is  always  well  for 
the  author  to  consider  the  attitude  of  mind 
likely  to  be  assumed  by  persons  whose  opin- 
ions are  at  variance  with  his  own.    Conscious 
of  the  wisdom  of  this  counsel,  I  can  well  im- 
agine what,  if  he  perseveres  so  far,  the  oppo- 
nent of  the  cigarette  will  be  inclined  to  say  at 
this  point  of  our  narrative.     It  would  be,  I 
imagine,  something  like  this : 

"This  is  all  very  well.  You  have  told  us 
everything  that  there  is  to  tell  about  the 
science  of  growing  tobacco  and  much  about 
the  art  of  transforming  it  into  the  cigarette. 
But  in  your  accounts  of  the  latter  particular 
you  have  omitted  one  most  important  detail. 
You  have  shown  us  that,  at  tremendous 
cost  and  with  scrupulous  care,  the  ciga- 
rette is  a  pure  product;  but,  although  you 
have  told  of  the  harvesting,  curing,  ordering, 
storing,  blending,  manufacture  and  packing — 
although  you  have  given  us  the  facts  about 
printing  and  rolling — you  have  said  nothing 
about  the  one  thing  that,  in  the  last  analysis, 

104 


CIGARETTE  PAPER  105 

differentiates  a  cigarette  from  a  cigar:  you 
have  failed  to  tell  us  of  the  nature  of  the  paper 
employed,  and  I  contend  that  the  paper  in  a 
cigarette  is  one  of  the  elements  that  make  this 
article  of  commerce  dangerous." 

Well,  such  a  critic  does  not  stand  alone.  It 
must  be  freely  admitted  that  he  has  plenty  of 
company.  Only  a  short  time  since,  a  promi- 
nent inventor,  himself  a  user  of  tobacco,  but 
not  in  cigarette  form,  made  a  statement  that 
seemed  to  place  him  beside  our  imaginary 
commentator.  He  asserted  that  cigarette 
paper  when  burned  gave  off  harmful  acrolein 
vapors. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  this  obiter 
dictum  merely  made  cellulose  and  paper 
chemists  smile.  Their  denial  of  the  statement 
was  prompt  and  vigorous,  and  it  was  evident 
that  this  critic  had  spoken  at  random. 

Acrolein  is  an  aldehyde  producible  only  in 
the  burning  of  fatty  substances,  generally 
animal  fats,  that  have  as  a  part  of  their  con- 
tent a  glyceride,  whereas  cigarette  paper  is 
wholly  a  vegetable  product  without  glyceride 
or  other  fatty  compound. 

Any  chemist  will  tell  you  that  cellulose 
fiber  is  the  substance  that  forms  the  basis  of 
a  sheet  of  ordinary  paper,  and  that  it  is  per- 
haps the  purest  form  of  a  natural  product 
extant.  In  chemical  constitution  it  is  a  form 
of  starch  and  differs  in  no  respect  from  the 
material  which  under  that  name  is  fed  to 
babies,  or  which  is  stored  in  seeds,  fruits,  and 
stems  for  the  nourishment  of  plants  and  gives 
them  their  food  value. 


106  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Do  papers  vary  in  their  chemical  proper- 
ties? Of  course  they  do.  Just  as  the  starches 
of  commerce  are  found  to  vary  according  to 
their  sources  from  which  they  are  derived — 
whether  from  potato,  arrow-root,  tapioca,  rice, 
corn,  wheat  or  barley — so  do  commercial 
papers  vary  according  to  their  derivation. 

The  ordinary  wrapping  papers  of  heavy 
weight  and  coarse  in  texture  and  appearance 
stand  at  perhaps  the  lowest  point  of  a  range 
extending  therefrom  through  many  familiar 
kinds  of  paper  made  by  the  matting  together 
of  cellulose  fibers  obtained  from  various 
materials.  All  of  them,  however,  are  of  vege- 
table origin,  derived  either  from  the  stems  of 
cereal  plants,  the  seeds  of  cotton,  the  tissues  of 
flax  and  hemp,  the  whole  stems  and  leaves  of 
straws  and  grasses,  sugar  cane,  bamboo  and 
the  various  kinds  of  soft  woods  such  as  spruce, 
hemlock,  poplar  and  cottonwood. 

But  cigarette  paper  stands,  with  the  purer 
forms  of  the  filtering  paper  used  by  chemists, 
at  the  other  end  of  the  range  of  papers  which 
begin  with  that  coarse  brown  product  em- 
ployed in  the  stores  for  wrapping  up  parcels. 
Like  filter  paper,  cigarette  paper  is  almost 
pure  cellulose. 

Anybody  that  will  take  the  trouble  to  in- 
vestigate may  readily  see  for  himself  that 
p  .  only  pure  flax  or  linen  fiber, 

rarity  hemp  fiber  and  ramie  fiber  are 

°  admissible  in  the  manufacture 

faper  of  cigarette  paper.  He  may — 

Ingredients  he  must_See  for  himself  that 
even  the  selection  of  these  is  deemed  of  great 


CIGARETTE  PAPER  107 

importance  in  the  production  of  a  paper  which 
will  grade  up  to  the  standard  insisted  upon 
by  makers  of  high  grade  cigarettes.  The  util- 
itarian reasons  are  sufficient.  These  manufac- 
turers must  themselves  meet  a  demand  for 
a  paper  that  will  insure  the  burning  of  the 
tobacco  it  contains,  that  is  of  itself  free-burn- 
ing and  that  is  yet  so  devoid  of  any  flavor  of 
its  own  as  not  in  any  way  to  affect  the  sensi- 
tive flavor  and  aroma  of  the  burning  tobacco. 

Now,  as  already  noted,  the  vegetable  fibers 
that  are  endowed  with  these  qualities  of  per- 
fect tastelessness  and  freedom  from  odor  are 
few,  and  the  production  of  a  good  cigarette 
paper  from  them  is  a  difficult  process,  beyond 
the  capacity  of  the  general  paper  manufac- 
turer. He,  indeed,  regards  special  tissues  of 
this  kind  with  the  same  wonder  that  is  elicited 
from  the  layman  who  knows  nothing  what- 
ever about  the  intricacies  and  manufacturing 
secrets  of  paper  making.  A  specialist  is  nec- 
essary. For  the  making  of  cigarette  paper 
is  a  highly  specialized  branch  of  the  broad 
industry  of  paper  making. 

The  paper  used  for  all  grades  of  their  prod- 
uct by  the  large  American  manufacturers  is 
of  a  sort  that  cannot  yet  be  produced  at  home 
in  either  the  desired  quality  or  quantity. 
Even  the  "rice-paper"  that  was  in  former 
times  the  boast  of  the  high  grade  cigarette, 
if  not  wholly  a  thing  of  the  past,  is  at  least 
employed  only  in  small  quantities.  Modern 
methods  have  developed  more  satisfactory  in- 
gredients. 

Because  of  the  nature  of  these  ingredients, 


108  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

the  chief  centers  of  the  cigarette  paper  indus- 
try are  now  in  France,  Austria,  Germany  and 
Italy — here  mentioned  in  the  order  of  their 
importance  as  regards  cigarette  paper  produc- 
tion— and  the  business  is  pursued  almost 
exclusively  in  European  countries. 

It  has  to  be  carried  on  close  to  large  sources 
of  the  spinning  wastes  of  linen  manufacture. 
In  addition  to  a  plentiful  supply  of  the 
raw  material,  one  of  the  prime  requisites  in 
the  conduct  of  this  specialty  is  an  abundant 
supply  of  the  purest  spring  water  for  bleach- 
ing and  washing  purposes. 

When  we  come  to  study  in  detail  the  re- 
quirements of  manufacture,  it  will  be  easy  to 
understand  why  the  industry  has  never  made 
much  headway  in  the  United  States. 

In  the. first  place,  there  are  generations  of 
experience  behind  the  products  of  the  Euro- 
.-  , .  pean  cigarette  paper  mills.  The 

Making  real  art  o£  the  cigarette  paper 

pga  maker  begins  with  the  correct 

aper  a  combination  of  the  cooked  pulps 

that  form  the  basis  of  the  fin- 
ished sheet  of  thin  paper,  which  varies  in 
opacity  and  soft  silkiness  of  texture  accord- 
ing to  brand. 

As  it  often  happens  that  orders  will  be  re- 
ceived at  a  cigarette  paper  mill  for  exactly 
the  same  quality  that  a  customer  purchased 
fifteen  or  twenty  years  earlier,  and  as  such 
an  order  is  likely  to  be  accompanied  by  the 
stipulation  that  "the  slightest  deviation  in  the 
interior  or  exterior  qualities  of  the  paper  will 
result  in  the  rejection  of  the  goods,"  even  a 


CIGARETTE  PAPER  109 

layman  will  grant  that  the  attention  which 
must  be  paid  to  the  selection  of  quantities  and 
qualities  of  raw  material  in  the  initial  stages 
of  manufacture  is  most  exacting. 

In  selecting  his  raw  material,  the  manufac- 
turer remembers  that  the  ideal  basis  for  ciga- 
rette paper  consists  of  housekeeping  linens 
spun  and  woven  at  home  by  the  rustic  popu- 
lation of  flax-growing  countries,  particularly 
in  the  eastern  part  of  the  Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy,  where  chloride  of  lime  •  as  a 
bleaching  agent  is  unknown  and  where  the 
fibers  of  these  linen  textiles  have  retained 
their  softness,  flexibility  and  integrity  of 
length  and  strength  unimpaired  by  chemicals^ 

Besides  the  home  spinners,  the  linen  spin- 
ning and  weaving  mills  contribute  their  share 
of  waste  for  conversion  into  paper  pulp,  and 
this  must  be  strong  and  of  good  quality,  owing 
to  the  stress  and  usage  that  the  thin  paper 
produced  from  it  must  withstand,  either  in 
rolling  by  hand  from  the  small  package  sheets, 
or  in  the  production  of  tubes  from  endless 
sheets,  to  be  filled  with  shredded  tobacco  on 
the  machines  used  in  wholesale  manufacture. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that,  for  hygienic 
reasons,  if  not  as  a  matter  of  nicety  in  taste, 
only  new  or  unworn  material  may  enter  into 
a  cigarette  paper,  and  even  the  new  fiber  sub- 
stances must  be  perfectly  clean.  For  the  same 
reasons,  absolute  cleanliness  in  all  stages  of 
the  process  of  manufacture  is  a  conditio  sine 
qua  non. 

Not  to  go  into  a  too  deeply  technical  de- 


110  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

scription  of  the  process  of  manufacture,  it  may 
at  once  be  said  that,  after  sorting 
Absolute  and  cutting,  the  material  for 
Cleanliness  Cigarette  paper  is  thoroughly 
***  Ousted  by  machinery,  after 

Necessity          which  it  is  Boiled  and  wasned, 

and  again  boiled,  this  time  in  a  solution  of  soda 
under  pressure. 

Different  papers,  of  course,  require  various 
pulps  boiled  according  to  different  processes, 
the  object  sought  for  in  a  freely  combustible 
paper,  such  as  cigarette  paper,  being  a  fiber 
which  combines  great  porosity  with  a  loose, 
spongy  consistence. 

Thus  the  boiling  process  determines  the 
quality  of  the  many  varieties  of  cigarette 
papers,  and  it  is  only  the  maker  of  these 
papers,  working  with  a  limited  quantity  of 
fiber,  who  can  decide  the  effect  of  this  or  that 
kind  of  digestion,  with  half  an  atmosphere  of 
pressure  more  or  less,  or  an  increase  or  de- 
crease of  soda,  or  maybe  the  effect  of  length- 
ening or  diminishing  the  boiling  period. 

Another  washing  follows  the  boiling,  and 
the  extent  to  which  this  is  carried  on  can  best 
be  understood  from  the  fact  that  for  each 
paper  machine  almost  300  gallons  of  clean 
water  per  minute  must  be  provided. 

The  well  washed  pulp  is  then  beaten  to  a. 
condition  that  reduces  it  to  "half-stuff,"  a 
technical  term  for  a  mass  of  pulp  that  has 
been  ground  and  teased  by  being  made  to  cir- 
culate in  water  in  a  big  oval-shaped  tub  under 
blunt  revolving  knives  that  almost  touch  a 
stationary  bed  of  blunt  knife  blades.  When 


CIGARETTE  PAPER  111 

the  pulp  has  been  sufficiently  disintegrated  in 
this  way,  it  is  further  diluted  with  water  and 
screened  to  remove  any  lumps  or  knots  that 
may  have  escaped  the  process  of  beating. 

There  follows  a  bleaching,  which  takes 
about  twenty-four  hours  before  the  desired 
whiteness  of  material  is  obtained.  A  further 
washing  ensues  to  remove  all  traces  of  the 
chemicals  used  in  bleaching,  and  then  the 
pulp  is  drained  and  stored  away  for  several 
weeks  to  ripen. 

It  is,  however,  with  the  final  utilization  of 
these  pulps  that  have  been  stored  for  ripening, 
that  the  true  craftsmanship  of  the  ,-. 

cigarette  paper  manufacturer  is  iref 

brought  into  play.    The  mixture  _.      ° , 

of  ripened  pulps  for  a  cigarette  Kipened 

paper  often  consists  of  ten  or  rulps 

twelve  kinds,  depending  upon  the  variety  of 
paper  to  be  made.  The  manufacturer's  field 
of  choice  is  wide,  and  now  his  success  depends 
upon  the  way  in  which  that  choice  is  exercised. 

The  decision  is  made;  the  manufacturer 
fixes  on  a  combination  of  pulps  that  will  pro- 
duce the  kind  of  paper  desired,  and  then  the 
whole-stuff-beating  engine  is  charged  with 
the  mixture.  Here  the  mass  is  again  beaten 
and  ground  under  revolving  dull-bladed,  knife- 
like  projections  for  from  six  to  eight  hours 
for  thick,  soft  and  porous  combustible  paper, 
and  from  sixty  to  eighty  hours  for  thin,  highly 
translucent  paper. 

After  determining,  by  samples  taken  at  dif- 
ferent levels  in  the  tub,  that  the  fibers  have 
been  thoroughly  softened  and  adequately 


112  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

teased  to  show  well  ramified  fiber  ends,  the 
material  is  transferred  to  a  mixing-tub.  Here 
water  is  added  to  bring  the  milky  suspension 
of  fibers  to  the  proper  consistence,  or  enough 
to  form  a  sheet  of  only  two  or  three  superim- 
posed fiber  layers. 

Now  the  paper-sheet  must  be  formed,  and 
to  effect  this  the  thin,  milk-like  suspension  of 
fibers  is  pumped  up  to  a  long,  ob- 
]ong.    box    elevate(j    above    the 

f  paper  machine,  and  is  further 
p  €  screened  and  filtered  in  its  pas- 

raper  sage  to  remove  any  knotted 

fibers.  From  the  oblong  box  it  trickles  over 
"slices"  exactly  parallel  to  an  endless  band 
of  copper  gauze,  called  a  Fourdrinier  wire, 
which,  in  addition  to  a  swift  forward  motion, 
has  a  regular  reciprocating  side  movement. 

On  this  wire  the  evolution  of  a  sheet  of 
paper  can  be  clearly  witnessed.  A  film  begins 
to  form  half  way  down  the  wire  as  the  pulp 
proceeds  on  its  swift  passage  to  the  first  couch 
roll,  where  the  delicate  web,  of  gossamer  fine- 
ness, is  transferred  from  the  wire  with  great 
care.  The  thin  tissue  of  paper  can  scarcely 
be  detected  on  the  wet  felt  where  it  is  caught 
on  its  passage  from  the  wire. 

Then  the  paper  is  led  under  and  over  dry- 
ing cylinders  heated  internally  by  steam.  It 
is  next  either  carried  upon  filagree  calenders 
where  artificial  watermarks  are  impressed  by 
means  of  engraved  steel  rollers  under  high 
pressure,  or  else  it  is  led  to  a  cross-cutting 
machine  that  divides  it  into  the  requisite 
shape  or  length. 


CIGARETTE  PAPER  113 

That,  briefly  but  exactly,  is  the  whole  story 
of  how  cellulose  fibers  are  transformed  into 
cigarette  paper.  It  should  be  convincing 
proof  of  the  purity  and  harmlessness  of  the 
product,  and  it  should  clear  our  way  for  a 
glance  at  another  side  of  the  cigarette  in- 
dustry that  reads  like  a  fairy  tale. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

GROWTH  OF  THE  INDUSTRY 

Remarkable  Development,  Now  Reaching  an  Annual  Produc- 
tion of  Over  16,000,000,000  Cigarettes— Nearly  500%  In- 
crease in  Last  Fifteen  Years — Growth  Due  to  Quality 
of   Tobacco    Used — Statistics    on   the 
Volume  of  Business. 

SO  ROMANTIC  is  the  history  of  the  ciga- 
rette industry's  growth  that,  were  it  not 
borne  out  by  the  cold  figures  of  Govern- 
mental reports,  the  average  reader  would  be 
justified  in  doubting  its  authenticity.  The 
leaps  that  it  has  made — leaps  upward  that  have 
never  been  followed  by  an  appreciable  decline 
— would,  if  translated  into  human  action,  fit 
only  the  career  of  the  impossible  hero  of  an 
impossible  novel.  What  the  unconquerable 
D'Artagnan  is  to  the  fiction  of  adventure,  the 
cigarette  is  to  the  fact  of  business. 

We  people  of  the  United  States  smoke  45,- 
005,715  cigarettes  on  each  of  the  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  days  of  the  year.  Half  a  cen- 
,  tury  ago  we  smoked  none,  or  practically  none, 
the  rare  few  in  use  then  being  of  the  expensive 
Russian  mouthpiece  variety.  But  they  were 
a  wholly  inconsiderable  item  in  tobacco  affairs. 

Looking  backward  from  the  present  situa- 
tion to  those  early  days,  we  see  that,  in  the 
fiscal  year  of  1869,  when  the  paper-covered 
cigarettes  of  the  sort  so  common  today  were 
first  classified  by  the  Government  for  internal 
revenue  purposes,  there  were  manufactured 

114 


GROWTH  OF  THE  INDUSTRY  115 


Number  of  cigarettes  on  which  the  internal  revenue  tax  was 

paid  during  the  fiscal  years  from  1869  to  1914, 

inclusive,  and  the  amounts  of  such  tax 

received  by  the  Government. 

Year  Number  Receipts  (Dollars) 

1869 ......          1,750,000  ,  3,273 

1870 , 13,890,000 .  21,426 

1871  18,930,000 28,605 

1872  20,691,000  ,..  31,082 

1873 27,087,000  40,658 

1874 28,717,000  43,695 

1875 41,297,000  .....   65,443 

1876  77,420,000  ;  135,485 

1877 149,069,000 261,818 

1878 165,189,000 289,081 

1879  238,276,000 ,  416,981 

1880  408,708,000  .... 715,269 

1881  567,386,000  992,981 

1882 554,543,000  972,570 

1883 640,019,000  929,974 

1884  ........   908,090,000  454,419 

1885 1,058,748,000  529,535 

1886  1,310,960,000  655,569 

1887  1,584,504,000  .. 792,279 

1888  1,862,726,000  931,363 

1889  2,151,515,000  1,075,830 

1890  2,233,254,000  1,116,727 

1891  2,684,538,000  1,342,269 

1892  2,892,982,000  -.  1,446,491 

1893  3,176,698,000  1,588,361 

1894 3,183,582,000  1,592,412 

1895  3,328,476,000  1,666,923 

1896  4,043,798,000 2,025,417 

1897  4,153,251,000  2,080,583 

1898  3,753,695,000  3,599,705 

1899  2,805,130,000  4,213,215 

1900  2,639,899,000  3,969,191 

1901  2,277,069,000  3,427,043 

1902  2,651,617,000  2,687,139 

1903  3,041,572,000 3,038,061 

1904  3,235,102,000  3,228,599 

1905  3,376,632,000 3,346,560 

1906 3,792,758,000  3,737,431 

1907  5,167,021,000  5,163,233 

1908  5,402,336,000 5,403,998 

1909  6,105,255,000  6,126,243 

1910  7,874,239,000  8,558,854 

1911  9,244,351,000  11,617,621 

1912  11,239,535;000 14,091,513 

1913  14,294,895,000  17,911,211 

1914  . . . .' 16,427,086,000  20,574,791 


116  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

only  1,750,000  cigarettes,  on  which  the  makers 
paid  a  tax  of  but  $3,273. 

In  1874,  after  the  business  had  received  a 
fair  start,  we  smoked  28,717,000,  upon  which  a 
tax  of  $43,695  was  paid,  while  forty  years  af- 
terward, in  1914,  the  business  had  grown  to 
vSuch  an  extent  that  we  smoked  in  that  year 
16,427,086,000  and  the  sum  paid  to  the  Govern- 
ment in  1914  for  internal  revenue  tax  by  manu- 
facturers of  cigarettes  was  $20,574,791.89. 

These  striking  facts  epitomize  the  remark- 
able growth  of  the  cigarette  business  in  this 
country.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest  industrial 
developments  the  world  has  ever  known,  and, 
as  it  is  a  case  where  figures  are  more  eloquent 
than  words,  it  is  best  elaborated  in  the  accom- 
panying table,  which  gives,  year  by  year,  the 
story  of  cigarette  progress  in  the  number  of 
cigarettes  manufactured  and  the  amount  of 
internal  revenue  tax  paid  on  them  from  the 
earliest  Government  records  to  the  close  of 
1914. 

It  is  worth  while  to  look  at  these  figures 
carefully.  By  them  you  will  see  that  in  the 

_~   latest  year  for  which  the  totals 
Nearly500%  are  available>   1914>  the  number 

ncreasein  Q£  cigarettes  manufactured  was 
the  Last  nt-  2,132,191,000  more  than  in  the 
preceding  year.  In  the  past  four 
years  the  product  was  doubled,  with  678,608,- 
000  to  spare.  Year  after  year  the  number 
made  and  sold  has  increased  by  leaps  and 
bounds  of  billions,  the  growth  in  the  last  six 
years  being  about  200  per  cent. ;  and  in  the  fif- 
teen years  from  1899  it  has  been  from  2,805,- 


GROWTH  OF  THE  INDUSTRY  117 

130,000  to  16,427,086,000,  or  nearly  500  per 
cent. 

Does  this  mean  only  an  increase  in  the  num- 
ber of  smokers?  While  we  are  dealing  with 
figures  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  in- 
crease of  2,132,191,000  cigarettes  in  1914  over 
the  total  for  1913  is  equivalent  to  an  increase 
of  5,841,619  per  day.  If  this  were  due  entirely 
to  new  smokers  and  their  average  consump- 
tion were  ten  cigarettes  in  each  twenty-four 
hours,  it  would  mean  that  cigarette  smokers 
in  the  United  States  are  growing  in  numbers 
at  the  rate  of  a  little  more  than  584,000  per 
year,  or  1,600  daily. 

Now,  while  the  demand  for  cigarettes  has  in- 
creased in  this  phenomenal  manner,  it  is  a  sig- 
nificant fact  that  the  number  of  cigars  smoked, 
and  the  amount  of  chewing  and  smoking  to- 
bacco and  of  snuff  consumed,  remained  about 
stationary.  The  cigar  consumption  even 
shows  a  slight  decrease  and  the  other  three 
varieties,  classified  under  the  head  of  "manu- 
factured tobacco,"  show  only  a  small  growth. 
In  1913  we  manufactured  8,732,815,000  cigars 
and  cheroots  as  against  8,707,625,000  in 
1914.  The  figures  on  manufactured  tobacco 
show,  for  1913,  a  total  of  437,572,088  pounds 
as  against  445,271,954  pounds  the  next  year. 

To  what  cause  are  we  justly  to  assign  this 
tremendous  increase  in  the  consumption  o£ 
cigarettes? 

There  is  one  reason  advanced  from  the  side 
of  the  manufacturer  as  his  part  in  the  growth 
of  the  industry,  although  he  well  realizes  that 
the  other  and  more  fundamental  reasons  rest 


118  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

with  the  smoking  public's  appreciation  of  the 
intrinsic  value  of  his  wares.  This  purely  trade- 
reason  was  recently  expressed  as  follows  in  one 
of  the  manufacturers'  trade  journals,  "The  To- 
bacco Leaf" : 

In  the  opinion  of  this  paper  the  remarkable  in- 
crease in  the  cigarette  output  is  simply  a  question  of 
business  enterprise.  The  cigarette  manufacturers 
have  done  things  in  a  big  way.  They  have  willingly 
expended  large  sums  of  money  without  expecting  or 
demanding  an  immediate  return.  They  have  done 
this  not  in  a  gambling  spirit,  but  after  having  actually 
and  calmly  mapped  out  a  logical  business  campaign 
and  having  followed  it  through  to  its  conclusion.  In 
other  words,  the  cigarette  business  has  had  a  punch 
behind  it. 

The  cigarette  manufacturers  have  been  optimists. 
They  have  refused  to  permit  temporary  business 
depression  to  interfere  with  their  business  aims  and 
purposes.  When  conditions  were  bright  and  pros- 
perous they  advertised  heavily;  when  conditions 
were  bad  and  the  future  foreboding  they  advertised 
more  heavily.  The  cigarette  division  is  about  the 
only  division  of  the  tobacco  industry  that  is  thor- 
oughly awakened  to  the  fact  that  advertising  is  more 
necessary  in  bad  times  than  in  good  times.* 

In  these  times  no  American  is  likely  to 
deny  the  value  of  advertising,  nor  will  any  ob- 
servant person  be  inclined  to  dispute  the 
statement  that  the  advertising  of  the  cigarette 
has  helped  its  sale.  But  it  is  a  well-known  fact 
that  no  amount  of  the  cleverest  advertising 
and  business  enterprise  will  keep  up  a  demand 
for  an  inferior  article,  and  that,  although  ad- 
vertising works  daily  miracles,  even  the  clevej 
advertising  of  our  great  cigarette  manufac 
turers,  while  it  has  undoubtedly  immensely  in 

*The  Tobacco  Leaf.     Issue  of  April  30,  1914. 


GROWTH  OF  THE  INDUSTRY  119 

creased  sales,  is  yet  incapable  of  being  the  chief 
cause  of  this  marvelous  growth  in  the  con- 
sumption of  cigarettes. 

Fundamentally,  the  leading  secret  of  that 
growth  must  obviously  be  that,  once  the  ciga- 
rette industry  really  began,  mil-    ^ 
lions  of  Americans  very  speedily    Oroa>™  D"e 
became  convinced  that  cigarettes        r  *r  L° 
were  best  for  them;  or,  to  put  it      of  Iob™co 
in  another  way,  they  have  real- 
ized that  cigarettes  are  the  most  pleasing  and 
the  mildest  form  of  tobacco  enjoyment. 

Back  of  that  reason  is  the  fact  that  the  very 
best  tobacco  grown  in  the  United  States  and 
in  the  Orient  is  used  in  the  manufacture  of 
cigarettes.  It  is  mild  tobacco.  There  is  un- 
deniably a  general  public  tendency  toward  the 
use  of  milder  tobacco,  and,  in  the  cigarette, 
men  get  this  in  an  economical  and  convenient 
form — the  short  smoke  that  is  peculiarly 
adaptable  to  the  temperment  of  the  American 
people  in  an  age  when  things  are  done  hur- 
riedly and  yet  with  greater  efficiency  than  at 
any  previous  time. 

No  consumer  knows  quite  so  well  what  he 
wants  as  does  the  smoker.  If  the  tobacco  put 
into  cigarettes  were  not  of  superior  quality 
and  if,  having  once  used  them,  men  were  not 
convinced  that  cigarettes  are  the  ideal  form  in 
which  to  use  tobacco,  it  stands  to  reason  that 
the  sale  of  cigarettes  would  instantly  decline. 

The  effect  which  the  ever  increasing  popu- 
larity of  the  cigarette  has  had  on  the  tobacco 
business  as  a  whole  is  evident  the  moment  we 
look  back  upon  that  business.  As  was  stated 


120  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

in  the  first  chapter  of  this  book,  the  greatest 
increases  in  the  tobacco  market  have  always 
been  coincident  with  increases  in  cigarette 
production.  You  will  remember  the  small  be- 
ginnings of  the  industry  as  previously  nar- 
rated. Today  the  only  crops  in  the  United 
States  that  are  richer  than  the  tobacco  crop  are 
those  of  corn,  wheat,  cotton,  hay,  oats  and 
potatoes.  Owing  chiefly  to  the  cigarette,  to- 
bacco is  our  seventh  largest  agricultural  prod- 
uct. ^ 
Two  and  three-quarter  inches  is  the  average 
length  of  a  cigarette,  yet,  placed  end  to  end,  the 
annual  output  of  cigarettes  would 
Statistics  extend  far  enough  to  make  a  sin- 

t?  i          f      £le  strand  bridge  from  the  earth 
Volume  of       to  the  moori)  around  the  moon 

five  times,  back  to  the  earth  and 
around  the  equator  about  four  times  with  a 
few  hundreds  of  miles  to  spare.  > 

With  that  same  output,  you  might  lay  a 
cigarette  cable  twenty-eight  and  a  half  times 
around  the  equator  and  again  have  a  few  hun- 
dreds of  miles  left  over.  And  if  you  prefer  to 
visualize  this  vast  quantity  of  cigarettes  in 
bulk,  just  consider  that,  in  1914,  there  were 
25,667  tons  of  tobacco  manufactured  into  ciga- 
rettes. 

These  figures  are  reflected  in  the  federal 
ledgers.  The  total  amount  of  money  received 
by  our  Government  from  the  internal  revenue 
tax  on  all  kinds  of  tobacco  products  during 
1914  was  $79,986,639.68.  This  does  not  take 
into  account  import  duties  and  revenue  from 
taxes  of  other  kinds  which  amount  to  many 


W 


PQ    -  «  S  »  P 


W'^SES| 

2  I*s:i| 
S  |Wi! 

JU   02j~js| 
O   *>2£  .^^ 

s  R™ 


GROWTH  OF  THE  INDUSTRY  121 

millions  more.  We  are  dealing  simply  with  the 
internal  revenue  tax  imposed  on  manufactur- 
ers. Yet  the  sum  mentioned  means  that  the 
tobacco  manufacturers  paid  more  than  a  fifth 
of  the  total  Government  receipts  from  internal 
revenue;  it  means  that  they  paid  nearly  three- 
fifths  of  the  entire  cost  of  the  United  States 
Navy  in  1914,  or  nearly  half  of  all  our  pen- 
sions; and  the  manufacturers  of  cigarettes 
alone,  through  their  portion  of  this  tax,  paid 
a  sum  nearly  as  large  as  the  interest  on  the 
public  debt.  In  that  one  year,  the  cigarette 
tax  paid  more  than  five  times  the  total  expen- 
ses of  the  Pension  Bureau  and  agencies  in  dis- 
bursing the  Government's  pensions. 

One  more  comparison  is  instructive.  The 
estimated  retail  price  of  cigarettes  in  America 
during  1914  is  $123,203,145.  An  estimate  of 
the  retail  price  of  tea  and  coffee  consumed  in 
this  country  during  the  same  year  is  about 
$259,000,000.  This  means  that  the  American 
j.  'ople  as  a  whole  spent  about$136,000,000more 
for  the  solace  and  comfort  in  tea  and  coffee 
than  for  the  sort  of  enjoyment  and  satisfac- 
tion derived  from  cigarettes.  But  cigarettes 
are  growing  in  favor  at  an  unprecedented  rate. 

There  are  still  persons — though  they  are  not 
persons  with  a  knowledge  of  cigarette  facts — 
who  declare  that  this  growth  is  a  source  of  dan- 
ger to  the  physique  of  the  American.  We  have 
already  touched  upon  one  or  two  of  their  pre- 
tentions.  It  is  now  high  time  to  regard  them 
in  detail  and  to  begin  with  a  study  of  the  chem- 
istry of  the  cigarette. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CHEMISTRY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

What  Noted  Scientists  Find — Convincing  Report  Made  by 
Ohio    Chemist — London   Lancet's  Analysis- 
Reports  of  Other  Reputable  Chemists. 

IN  THE  world  of  commerce  there  is  a 
legion  of  cigarettes,  but  in  the  world  of  con- 
troversy there  are  but  two  brands:  There 
is  the  cigarette  that  science  has  seen  and 
tested  and  upon  which  it  has  reported  favor- 
ably, and  there  is  the  cigarette  that  the  anti- 
cigarette  crusader  thinks  he  sees  and  finds 
wholly  irredeemable. 

The  crusader — let  us  set  it  down  to  his 
credit — has  a  way  of  saying  things  that,  even 
if  rarely  resulting  in  changing  laws  or  the 
habits  of  a  nation,  at  least  do  get  heard. 

It  is  safe  to  assume  that  no  reader  of  these 
pages  is  unfamiliar  with  the  anti-cigarette 
man's  accusations.  He  is  sure  that  the  ciga- 
rette is  filled  with  terrible  drugs ;  he  is  certain 
that  it  contains  the  germs  of  many  an  awful 
disease ;  he  feels  confident — at  times  he  seems 
almost  to  hope — that  in  its  curling  smoke 
there  lurk  the  unavoidable  seeds  of  death. 

What,  on  the  contrary,  has  been  discovered 
in  the  cigarette  by  science  in  the  person  of  the 
unprejudiced  and  clear-headed  chemist? 

Nothing  but  pure  tobacco  and  the  purest 
product  of  the  paper-maker's  art. 

Analyses  of  dozens  of  brands  of  cigarettes 
have  been  made  by  the  score  in  the  official 
laboratories  of  national  and  state  govern- 

122 


CHEMISTRY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE  123 

ments  and  universities,  both  in  Europe  and 
the  United  States,  yet  always  the  chemical  ex- 
perts who  did  the  work  have  been  unanimous 
in  their  verdict,  and  always  the  verdict  has 
been  the  same.  These  are  men  of  the  highest 
ability,  men  at  the  head  of  their  profession, 
and  they  have  one  and  all  agreed  that  the 
cigarette  is  nothing  but  about  one-twentieth 
of  an  ounce  of  the  highest  quality  of  tobacco 
enveloped  in  a  Ix224-inch  piece  of  pure  paper 
weighing  one  seven-hundredth  of  an  ounce. 

That  is  all.  That  and  nothing  more.  No 
added  ingredients:  no  opium,  no  morphine, 
no  arsenic. 

Of  course  it  is  at  any  time  easy  to  prove 
that  to  introduce  such  ingredients  would  be 
an  impossibility  from  the  manufacturer's 
standpoint,  and  equally  of  course  the  charge 
has  been  disproved  so  often  that  it  ought  to 
be  unnecessary  to  pay  any  attention  to  it  here. 
The  stock  argument  used  in  attacks  on  cig- 
arettes always  has  consisted,  and  still  con- 
tinues to  consist,  of  the  mere  allegation  that 
the  cigarettes  do  contain  drugs;  for  some  ob- 
scure reason  the  pesudo-reformers  seem  loath 
to  drop  the  fiction,  and  so  the  tottering  argu- 
ment is  daily  and  persistently  reiterated. 

Ohio  is  one  of  the  states  where  the  poison- 
rash  most  recently  broke  out  on  the  body  pol- 
itic,  and   there   it   produced   at       -      .     . 
least  one  beneficial  result— bene-      ********* 
ficial  to  the  cigarette,  its  manu-  , .    .  /**££? 
facturers  and  the  peace  of  mind  Made^  °™° 
of  its  consumers.  The  Dairy  and 
Food  Division  of  the  Agricultural  Commis- 


124  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

sion  of  Ohio  took  the  matter  up,  with  the  re- 
sult that  the  Bureau  of  Drugs  of  that  great 
state  has  made  one  of  the  most  thorough 
examinations  of  cigarettes  ever  attempted, 
and  has  issued  an  exhaustive  official  report 
that  should  forever  lay  the  ghost  of  this  ciga- 
rette drug  fiction. 

Dr.  Azor  Thurston,  department  chemist, 
is  the  man  that  conducted  the  analyses,  which 
were  of  twenty-six  popular  brands  of  ciga- 
rettes. His  report  is  preceded  by  an  announce- 
ment by  W.  R.  Hower,  chief  drug  inspector 
of  the  Bureau  of  Drugs,  in  which  he  thus  tells 
of  the  origin  and  object  of  the  investigation: 

This  Department  in  the  course  of  its  regular  nar- 
cotic work  and  in  the  investigation  of  narcotic  sales 
invariably  found  quantities  of  the  cheaper  brands  of 
cigarettes  with  the  opium  outfits  and  abundant  evi- 
dence that  large  quantities  of  the  cigarettes  were 
consumed  with  the  opium.  The  constant  association 
of  the  use  of  cigarettes  with  narcotics  and  especially 
with  the  opium  and  cocaine  habits,  led  to  a  more 
thorough  investigation  along  this  line  with  the  re- 
sult that  the  Drug  Bureau  called  the  attention  of 
Hon.  S.  E.  Strode,  Commissioner  in  Charge  of  the 
Dairy  and  Food  Division  of  the  Agricultural  Com- 
mission, to  the  conditions  found.  He  immediately 
ordered  a  complete  and  full  investigation  and  anal- 
ysis of  the  various  brands  of  cigarettes  on  sale  in 
this  state.  The  object  was  to  determine  if  possible 
the  cause  for  the  so-called  cigarette  habit  and  to 
determine  what  substances  if  any  were  added  to  the 
cigarettes. 

Reports  had  reached  the  bureau  that  manufac- 
turers of  cigarettes  and  cheap  cigars  were  buying 
large  quantities  of  tincture  opium,  but  this  the 
bureau  was  unable  to  verify. 


CHEMISTRY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE  125 

Thereupon  Inspector  Hower  records  that, 
after  a  study  of  Dr.  Thurston's  report,  his 
Bureau  has  drawn  the  conclu- 
sions: that  "no  added  medicinal       ^  Added 
substances  of  a  narcotic  nature  ru?^1** 

were  found  in  the  tobacco";  that  ~L  Any 

"the  tobacco  products  were 
found  to  be  slightly  lower  in  nicotine  than  the 
average  leaf -tobacco" ;  that  the  paper  wrap- 
pers of  the  cigarettes  "were  found  to  be 
treated  with  the  carbonates  and  oxides  of  col- 
cium,  aluminum  and  magnesium,  added  prob- 
ably to  regulate  the  burning  qualities"  and  all 
perfectly  harmless.  He  also  concluded  that 
any  evil  effects  of  habitual  cigarette  smoking 
"must  be  attributed  to  the  inhalation  of  the 
smoke  or  the  products  of  combustion  rather 
than  to  any  added  narcotic  in  either  the  tobacco 
or  the  papers."  The  portions  of  Dr.  Thurston's 
report  that  relate  to  the  filling  material  in  the 
cigarettes  follow: 

Some  six  months  ago  while  in  conversation  with 
Hon.  S.  E.  Strode,  Commissioner  in  Charge  of  the 
Dairy  and  Food  Division  of  Ohio,  the  question  of 
adulteration  of  cigarettes  and  other  tobacco  prod- 
ucts came  up  and  the  statement  was  made,  by  some 
one  present,  that  large  quantities  of  tincture  of 
opium  were  being  purchased  by  manufacturers  of 
this  line  of  goods.  An  investigation  was  therefore 
ordered,  not  only  as  to  opium,  but  as  to  medicinal 
substances  in  general.  It  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  writer 
to  make  whatever  investigation  was  deemed  neces- 
sary. 

The  most  natural  thing  to  do  was  to  look  up  the 
literature  on  the  subject  and  to  my  surprise  I  was 
unable  to  find  a  published  account  of  the  analysis  of 


126  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

cigarettes  or  cigars,  although  other  tobacco  products 
were  fairly  covered  in  reference  to  nicotine  and  some 
other  constants.  I  therefore  wrote  to  the  Bureau  of 
Chemistry,  U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture,  where 
one  naturally  expects  to  obtain  methods  of  analysis 
of  practically  everything,  and  again  I  was  doomed 
to  disappointment ;  the  reply  indicated  that  methods 
had  not  been  developed  for  making  analyses  of 
cigarettes,  although  the  department  had  made  a  few 
examinations  of  cigarettes  with  the  view  of  deter- 
mining whether  or  not  they  contained  opium  or 
arsenic. 

I  found  in  Wiley's  Agricultural  Analysis  a  state- 
ment in  reference  to  opium  and  cigarettes  as  follows : 

"It  is  believed,  however,  that  opium  is  not  often 
found  in  manufactured  tobacco,  and  it  has  never 
been  found  in  this  laboratory  in  cigarettes,  although 
all  the  standard  brands  have  been  examined  for  it." 

I  at  once  took  the  matter  up  with  Dr.  Wiley  by 
correspondence  and  received  a  reply  as  follows: 

"As  far  as  I  know,  opium,  arsenic,  etc.,  have  never 
been  found  in  cigarettes.  This  is  a  rumor  which  is 
constantly  being  floated,  but  is  without  general 
foundation.  The  cigarettes  are  harmful  enough  in 
themselves  without  seeking  this  extreme  evil  in 
them.  None  of  the  results  referred  to  were  ever 
published  as  far  as  I  know.  You  can,  perhaps,  get 
more  definite  information  concerning  this  investiga- 
tion from  Mr.  McElroy  himself  as  he  is  a  practicing 
chemical  patent  attorney  in  this  city.  The  address 
is  K.  P.  McElroy,  918  F  Street.  I  have  no  special 
data  on  the  subject  of  the  cigarette  evil,  but  am 
unalterably  opposed  to  the  use  of  tobacco  in  any 
form,  as  I  consider  it  an  unclean,  unhealthy  habit 
which  diminishes  the  vitality  and  the  efficiency  of 
the  user,  and  is,  moreover,  an  imposition  on  the  pub- 
lic who  do  not  use  it." 

Upon  receipt  of  Dr.  Wiley's  letter  it  appeared  I 


CHEMISTRY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE  127 

would  obtain  the  information  I  most  desired  and  I 
immediately  wrote  to  Mr.  McElroy  for  more  light 
upon  the  subject.  He  promptly  replied  as  follows: 

"I  regret  to  say  that  I  can  give  you  very  little 
information  concerning  the  analyses  of  cigarettes  at 
the  present  day.  What  analytical  work  I  did  was 
done  very  many  years  ago  and  the  results  were 
never  published  to  my  knowledge,  having  been  made 
for  the  information  of  a  congressional  committee. 

"About  all  I  remember  of  the  matter  at  present 
is  that  in  the  12  or  13  brands  I  analyzed  I  did  not, 
of  course,  find  morphine,  arsenic,  and  other  alleged 
ingredients.  Neither  did  I  find  alfalfa,  a  common 
rumor  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  I  found 
considerably  more  nicotine  than  expected." 

During  this  correspondence  the  inspectors  had  de- 
livered to  me  a  number  of  samples  for  analysis  and 
I  decided  to  begin  the  investigation  along  lines  that 
appeared  most  desirable,  the  details  of  which  follow. 

PREPARATION  OF  SAMPLES 

The  samples  were  not  dried  except  as  they  were 
kept  in  the  laboratory  at  a  temperature  of  about  25  ° 
C.  Any  attempt  at  artificial  drying  might  be  at  the 
sacrifice  of  nicotine  and  was,  therefore,  not  attempt- 
ed. The  samples  were  next  powdered  so  as  to  pass 
through  a  No.  20  sieve.  If  finer,  so  much  the  better, 
but  it  is  difficult  to  obtain  a  powder  of  this  fineness, 
even  after  passing  the  sample  through  a  meat  chop- 
per several  times.  In  case  of  cigarettes  the  papers 
were  removed  and  all  particles  of  the  filler  carefully 
dusted  off,  so  as  to  obtain  the  papers  as  free  from 
the  filler  as  possible,  separate  analyses  being  made 
of  the  papers. 

THE  ANALYSIS 

Determinations  were  made  as  follows: 

Nicotine. 

Ash. 

Water  soluble  ash. 


128  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Water  insoluble  ash  (by  difference). 
Hydrochloric  acid  insoluble  ash. 
Alkalinity  of  water  soluble  ash. 
Alkalinity  of  water  insoluble  ash. 
Opium  and  other  drugs. 

The  tabulated  report  of  the  analyses  of  the 
twenty-six  brands  of  cigarettes  that  were  ex- 
amined by  Dr.  Thurston  will  be  found  on  the 
following  page.  The  analyses  for  opium  and 
other  drugs,  indeed  for  "dope"  of  any  kind,  ut- 
terly failed  to  reveal  any  such  added  medicinal 
substances  in  the  fillers  of  any  of  the  brands 
examined.  Analyses  were  also  made  of  three 
sorts  of  tobacco  leaves  with  the  midribs  re- 
moved, and  the  average  of  nicotine  in  them 
was  found  to  be  3.04  per  cent.,  as  opposed  to 
an  average  of  only  1.69  per  cent,  in  the  ciga- 
rettes. 

In  connection  with  the  statement  of  Dr.  H. 
W.  Wiley  quoted  in  the  foregoing  report,  it 
is  interesting  to  refer  to  a  report  on  cigarettes 
that  was  made  by  this  eminent  investigator 
when  he  was  chief  chemist  of  the  United  States 
Department  of  Agriculture.  Here  is  his  state- 
ment: 

U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture, 

Division  of  Chemistry, 

Washington,  D.  C., 

June   13,    1892. 
To  whom  it  may  concern : 

I  have  examined  samples  of  the  following  brands 
of  cigarettes,  purchased  by  me  in  the  open  market, 
and  found  them  entirely  free  of  any  trace  of  arsenic 
or  of  opium  or  any  of  its  active  principles. 

Respectfully,  H.  W.  Wiley. 


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130  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

The  brands  of  cigarettes  that  Dr.  Wiley 
examined  were  thirteen  of  the  most  popular 
cigarettes  of  that  time. 

Dr.  Thurston,  in  the  Ohio  report,  says  he 
was  unable  to  find  a  published  account  of  the 
analysis  of  cigarettes.  He  over- 
London  ^  looked  a  very  important  one 
Lancet  made  by  an  authority  of  no  less 
Analysis  of  standing  in  the  scientific  world 
than  The  Lancet,  of  London. 
The  Lancet  is  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
of  medical  publications,  and,  in  reviewing  its 
report,  the  New  York  Medical  Journal 
referred  to  it  as  an  "unimpeachable  authority." 
The  report,  made  December  9,  1899,  is  so  im- 
portant that  we  take  the  liberty  of  here  repro- 
ducing the  major  portion  of  it : 

In  1888  a  rumor  gained  currency  that  cigarettes 
contained  a  large  proportion  of  opium  and  "an  un- 
classified alkaloid,"  and,  further,  that  the  paper  con- 
tained arsenic,  copper,  or  chlorine.  The  subject  was 
obviously  of  great  public  interest,  and  The  Lancet 
Analytical  Sanitary  Commission  was  appointed  in 
1888  to  make  inquiry  on  these  heads,  with  the  result 
that  we  were  able  to  say  in  The  Lancet  of  Oct. 
20th,  1888,  that  there  was  no  trace  of  opium  or  any 
"unclassified  alkaloid"  in  the  tobacco,  not  a  trace  of 
chlorine  or  arsenic  in  the  paper,  but  there  was  a 
faint  trace  of  copper  due  to  the  metallic  lettering 
on  the  paper  wrapper.  The  indictment  to  which  we 
have  referred  nevertheless  gained  ground  and  eventu- 
ally, about  the  year  1891,  disturbed  the  minds  of 
many  people  in  the  United  States,  where  a  large 
proportion  of  the  tobacco  supply  of  the  world  is 
produced. 

This  ultimately  led  to  a  very  remarkable  move- 


CHEMISTRY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE  131 

ment  against  the  use  of  the  cigarette,  which  seems 
to  show  no  signs  of  abatement  at  the  present  time 
in  the  States.  The  tactics  adopted  by  the  leaders  of 
this  movement  are  decidedly  odd  and,  to  put  it 
mildly,  somewhat  illogical.  Apparently  an  endeavor 
has  been  made  to  prove  that  cigarette  smoking  is 
responsible  for  the  high  lunacy  returns,  the  ranks  of 
the  insane  and  criminal  classes  being,  it  is  alleged, 
recruited  from  the  boys  who  have  been  cigarette 
smokers. 

So  energetically  was  this  statement  put  forward 
and  with  such  credulity  was  it  received,  that  we  find 
in  the  press  of  New  York  such  amusing  headings  as 
the  following: 

CIGARETTES  MADE  HIM  A  LUNATIC.  A  BRIGHT 
SCHOOLBOY  BECOMES  A  CHATTERING  BEG- 
GAR FROM  THEIR  USE.  MADE  MAD  BY  SMOK- 
ING. DANCED,  RAVED,  AND  PRAYED. 
STRAPPED  TO  STRETCHER,  THE  YOUNG 
TAILOR  WAS  CARRIED  SINGING  TO  INSANE 
WARD.  CIGARETTES  CLAIM  A  VICTIM.  BE- 
GAN SMOKING  THE  WEED  WHEN  BUT  A  LAD 
AT  SCHOOL,  WHICH  BROUGHT  HIS  LIFE  TO 
AN  END  BEFORE  HE  WAS  TWENTY-ONE  AND 
PRODUCED  A  LARGE  TUMOR  ON  THE  BRAIN 
AND  PARALYZED  BOTH  LOWER  LIMBS. 
PUFFED  OUT  LIFE  BY  CIGARETTES.  THE  COL- 
LAPSE CAME  YESTERDAY  AND  DEATH -FOL- 
LOWED QUICKLY  EARLY  THIS  MORNING. 

We  quote  a  number  of  similar  excerpts.  It  re- 
mains to  add  that  on  investigation  being  made  there 
was  no  foundation  for  the  statement  that  death  was 
due  to  cigarette  smoking.  In  each  case  it  was  made 
perfectly  clear  that  the  cause  of  death  had  no  rela- 
tion to  smoking  at  all.  *  *  *  But  absurd  state- 
ments of  this  kind  continue  to  be  made  in  the  United 
States,  and  the  subject  has  appealed  to  us  (though 
a  similar  agitation  has  not  yet  arisen  on  any  scale  in 
this  country)  as  one  of  general  public  interest  and 


132  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

one  which  merits  inquiry.  It  should  be  stated,  how- 
ever, that  some  of  the  brands  of  cigarettes  sold  in 
New  York  may  be  obtained  in  this  country.  We 
therefore  referred  the  subject  to  our  New  York  cor- 
respondent, who  informed  us  that  there  was  a  move- 
ment in  New  York  of  the  kind  which  we  have  de- 
scribed, basing  its  indictment  largely  upon  the 
averred  presence  of  poisonous  materials  in  the 
cigarette,  without  having  regard  to  the  question  of 
the.  in  jury  to  health  which  may  result  from  excess- 
ive or  juvenile  smoking. 

Acting  under  our  instructions,  our  correspondent 
secured  various  brands  of  cigarettes  in  shops  in  New 
York  City  and  despatched  them  to  The  Lancet 
Laboratory  for  examination  and  analysis.  At  the 
same  time  our  Commissioners  purchased  cigarettes 
of  American  manufacture  at  shops  in  London,  bear- 
ing, in  the  majority  of  instances,  the  same  brands. 
The  results  which  have  recently  been  obtained  in 
The  Lancet  Laboratory  are  printed  in  the  accom- 
panying table.  (This  table  will  be  found  on  the 
following  page  of  this  book.) 

It  will  be  apparent  from  this  table  that  if  any 
reproach  exists  at  all  it  will  be  evident  in  the  case 
of  both  the  cigarettes  purchased  in  New  York  and 
the  same  brands  of  cigarettes  sold  in  London.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  results  in  both  cases  show 
no  foundation  whatever  for  the  exaggerated  state- 
ments that  have  been  made.  *  *  * 

It  is  true  that  tobacco  normally  contains  certain 
organic  bodies,  sticky  substances,  which  behave  like 
sugar,  but  it  is  also  true  that  glucose  or  saccharine 
matter  is  sometimes  added  to  tobacco  for  a  practical 
purpose.  -This  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  cold 
water  decoction  of  some  cigarettes  yields  a  perfectly 
definite  crystalline  precipitate  of  glucosazone  with 
phenylhydrazine.  The  addition  is  harmless.  *  *  * 
The  addition  of  glycerine  in  trifling  amounts  is  at 


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134  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

any  rate  recognized  by  the  trade.  We  are  of  opinion 
that  neither  glycerine  nor  glucose  in  the  extremely 
limited  amounts  shown  in  our  analyses  is  in  the 
smallest  degree  injurious. 

To  sum  up,  there  is  not  a  single  factor  in  these 
numerous  results  upon  which  can  be  fairly  based 
any  allegation  of  the  presence  of  a  substance 
producing  injury  to  health.  As  to  the  question  of 
injury  to  health  which  may  easily  result  from  the 
excessive  or  premature  smoking  of  tobacco  in  any 
form,  that  is  quite  beside  the  issue,  the  present  in- 
quiry only  having  reference  to  the  statement  that 
these  cigarettes  were  injurious  because  they  con- 
tained foreign  poisonous  ingredients;  as  we  have 
said,  a  very  careful  search  failed  to  elicit  the  slight- 
est evidence  on  this  head. 

No  one  deprecates  more  than  do  we  ourselves  the 
appalling  increase  of  the  practice  of  smoking  among 
juveniles,  and  if  those  who  are  so  emphatically 
solicitous  about  the  health  of  the  young  community 
would  turn  their  attention  to  this  aspect  of  the  ques- 
tion with  a  view  to  the  restriction  of  the  objection- 
able habit,  undoubted  good  would  be  done.  But  to 
make  manifestly  exaggerated  statements  will  not 
ultimately  help  the  case  one  tittle;  indeed,  it  is  more 
likely  to  aggravate  the  evil.  *  *  * 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  percentage  amount 
of  nicotine  in  the  pure  Virginia  leaf  invariably  used 
in  these  cigarettes  seldom  exceeds,  according  to 
these  analyses,  1  per  cent.  In  other  kinds  of  tobacco 
it  may  reach  four  times  that  amount.  It  is  doubtful, 
however,  whether  any  nicotine  ever  reaches  the 
mouth  of  the  smoker  except  that  present  in  the 
moistened  tobacco  which  is  in  contact  with  the  lips. 
The  smoke  products  of  tobacco  do  not  contain  any 
important  quantity  of  nicotine. 

Another  authoritative  report  is  that  made 
by  Professor  J.  W.  Mallet,  of  the  Chair  of 


CHEMISTRY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE  135 

Chemistry  at  the  University  of  Virginia.  In 
1898  he  examined  samples  of  five  of  the  largest 
selling  brands  of  cigarettes,  and  this  was  his 
conclusion : 

Both  tobacco  and  paper  were  in  very  consider- 
able quantity,  carefully  examined  for  the  noxious 
foreign  ingredients  which  have  been  sometimes 
said  to  have  been  added  in  the  process  of  manu- 
facture. None  of  these  could  be  found.  Neither 
morphine,  nor  any  other  characteristic  constituent 
of  opium,  was  detected,  nor  was  atrophine,  strych- 
nine, cocaine,  of  any  other  fixed  alkaloid  present 
in  the  tobacco.  No  traces  were  obtainable  of  any 
compound  of  arsenic,  lead  or  copper  in  the  paper. 

The  whole  examination  lends  no  support  to  the 
sensational  stories  occasionally  circulated  in  re- 
gard to  dangerous  adulteration  of  cigarettes. 

Our  next  expert  witness  is  Launcelot  W. 
Andrews,  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  the  State 
University  of  Iowa.    In  1897  he        ., 
made  a  careful  analysis  of  three       Sports  o 
of  the  most  popular  brands  of       R         juT 
cigarettes,  in  order  to  ascertain         ri? 
whether  they  contained  any  inju- 
rious substances  as  adulterants  or  otherwise, 
and  his  testimony  is : 

The  results  of  this  examination  were,  in  brief, 
that  in  case  of  all  three  brands,  the  papers  used 
were  free  from  arsenic  and  all  other  injurious 
metallic  substances,  and  the  tobacco  was  free  from 
opium,  saltpeter  and  other  adulterations  or  sophis- 
tications. 

The  tobacco  employed  in  the  manufacture  of 
these  cigarettes  contains  much  less  nicotine  than 
that  commonly  used  in  cigars  or  even  for  pipes. 

Following  Professor  Andrews  on  the  stand 


136  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

comes  Walter  S.  Haines,  Professor  of  Chem- 
istry in  Rush  Medical  College,  Chicago,  who, 
in  1889,  made  a  chemical  analysis  of  ten  dif- 
ferent samples  of  Sweet  Caporal  cigarettes 
purchased-  in  Chicago  retail  stores.  Says  Dr. 
Haines: 

I  have  submitted  all  these  specimens  to  chemical 
analysis,  and  would  report  that  I  am  unable  to 
find  any  morphine  or  opium  present  in  any  of  them ; 
nor  am  I  able  to  discover  any  other  alkaloid  pres- 
ent except  the  nicotine  of  the  tobacco. 

When  Dr.  Haines  was  called  upon,  Chicago 
was  suffering  from  one  of  our  periodical  anti- 
cigarette  fevers,  and  there  was  a  great  hue 
and  cry  for  a  drastic  ordinance  against  this 
form  of  smoking.  The  usual  allegations  were 
shouted,  and  an  investigation  by  the  city 
authorities  demanded.  Accordingly,  City 
Chemist  Cass  L.  Kennicott  and  Assistant  City 
Chemist  D.  B.  Bisbee,  acting  for  the  Chicago 
Commissioner  of  Health;  made  an  investiga- 
tion and  presented  a  report  in  which  they  de- 
clared : 

American  cigarettes  are  made  of  "bright  Vir- 
ginia" (this  is  a  technical  term  and  means  a  to- 
bacco grown  in  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  and 
warehoused  for  three  years  before  it  is  used),  and 
frequent  analyses  show  that  this  tobacco  contains 
only  from  1  to  iy2  per  cent,  of  nicotine.  The  mild- 
est Havana  contains  much  more,  while  the  best 
grades  of  domestic  cigars  reach  as  high  as  8*4  per 
cent.  *  *  *  The  paper,  considered  merely  as 
paper,  which  is  wrapped  around  the  cigarettes,  is 
about  as  pure  a  form  of  paper  as  it  is  possible  to 
get  by  any  means. 


CHEMISTRY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE  137 

Another  convincing  report  is  that  made  to 
the  Massachusetts  State  Committee  on  Public 
Health  by  Professor  James  F.  Babcock,  who  for 
five  years  was  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  the 
Massachusetts  College  of  Pharmacy,  for  five 
years  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  Boston  Uni- 
versity, and  for  ten  years  the  Massachusetts 
State  Assayer.  He  gives  as  follows  the  re- 
sults of  his  analysis  of  nine  brands  of  ciga- 
rettes : 

THE  FILLINGS.  Careful  and  thorough  ex- 
amination, both  chemical  and  microscopic,  showed 
that  the  specimens  contained  no  opium,  morphine, 
strychnine  or  other  drug  or  poison  foreign  to 
tobacco.  In  short,  the  fillings  in  every  one  of  the 
specimens  were  found  to  consist  of  tobacco  and 
nothing  else. 

THE  WRAPPERS.  Analyses  of  the  paper 
wrappers  demonstrated  the  absence  of  any  trace 
of  arsenic,  white  lead  or  other  poison.  The  papers 
were  all  of  excellent  quality  (rice) ;  in  one  speci- 
men said  to  be  ma  le  from  corn  husks.  These 
papers  contained  such  elements  as  are  always  to 
be  found  in  the  plants  producing  the  fibre  from 
which  they  are  made,  and  contained  no  others. 

Is  still  more  expert  testimony  necessary? 
If  it  is,  I  can  go  on  almost  indefinitely  pre- 
senting witnesses  for  the  defense  of  the  ciga- 
rettes— more  and  more  expert  witnesses  of  the 
highest  repute — but  surely  this  last  will  am- 
ply suffice.  He  is  Professor  Willis  G.  Tucker, 
who,  when  Analyst  of  New  York  State,  made 
a  chemical  examination  of  four  of  the  most 
widely  sold  lowest  priced  cigarettes  "with  a 
view  to  determining  whether  the  tobacco  of 
which  they  are  manufactured  contains  opium 


138  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

or  other  harmful  or  poisonous  drugs,  or  the 
paper  wrappers  any  harmful  constituents."  As 
indicated  by  the  following  extracts,  his  work, 
which  was  described  in  the  ninth  annual  re- 
port of  the  New  York  State  Board  of  Health, 
was  very  comprehensive  and  extremely  thor- 
ough. He  said: 

On  searching  the  chemical,  medical  and  scientific 
journals  and  text  books,  no  definite  statement  could 
be  found  to  the  effect  that  opium  or  other  poisonous 
drugs  or  compounds  were  employed  in  the  manu- 
facture of  cigarettes,  or  that  the  paper  in  which  they 
are  wrapped  is  contaminated  by  arsenic,  or  pur- 
posely impregnated  therewith,  or  with  other  poison- 
ous substances,  nor  were  any  analytical  results 
found  recorded  showing  that  such  is  the  case.  Never- 
theless, statements  of  this  kind  are  frequently  made 
in  the  newspapers  on  no  other  authority,  and  these 
statements,  being  carelessly  repeated  about  from 
mouth  to  mouth,  come  at  last,  with  no  good  reason, 
to  be  believed  by  many  people. 

The  samples  were  carefully  examined,  and  as  fully 
as  the  time  allowed  for  the  work  would  admit,  more 
particularly  for  opium,  and  the  wrappers  for  arsenic, 
but  no  traces  of  either  of  these  substances,  nor 
evidence  of  the  presence  of  any  other  poisonous  sub- 
stance foreign  to  the  tobacco,  were  discovered  in 
any  of  them.  The  tobacco  of  each  was  carefully 
scrutinized  before  analysis,  but  failed  to  reveal  the 
presence  of  any  foreign  matter  visible  to  the  eye. 
The  paper  in  which  the  tobacco  was  wrapped  in  each 
instance  burned  to  an  exceedingly  minute  white 
ash.  *  *  * 

Cigarettes  are  generally  made  from  tobacco  of 
good  quality,  and  the  anonymous  sensational  state- 
ments that  appear  from  time  to  time  in  the  news- 
papers to  the  effect  that  they  are  prepared  from  the 


CHEMISTRY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE  139 

filthiest  tobacco  and  the  dirtiest  refuse  are  not 
worthy  of  credence,  and  can  easily  be  refuted. 

As  regards  the  paper  wrapper,  there  is  no  rea- 
son why  an  impure  or  poisonous  paper  should  be 
employed,  and  many  reasons  why  it  should  not. 
I  am  ignorant  of  any  facts  proving  such  to  be  the 
case,  at  least  so  far  as  the  leading  American  brands 
of  cigarettes  are  concerned. 

Concerning  the  alleged  use  of  opium  in  cigarettes, 
a  recent  writer  in  a  scientific  journal  says :  "A  silly 
but  prevalent  superstition  is  that  cigarettes  con- 
tain opium.  If  there  were  no  other  reason,  the  manu- 
facturer could  not  afford  to  introduce  the  oriental 
drug  into  his  goods." 

In  an  ably  prepared  paper  entitled  "A  Brief 
for  the  Cigarette,"  read  by  W.  H.  Garrison, 
of  New  York,  before  the  Medico-Legal 
Society,  November  17,  1897,  so  many  unim- 
peachable authorities  were  cited,  and  such 
sane  conclusions  made,  concerning  the  purity 
of  the  tobacco  in  cigarettes  and  of  the  paper 
wrappers  about  them,  that  it  is  no  wonder 
that  men  of  scientific  repute  have  since  refused 
to  be  led  into  the  "added  ingredients"  trap. 
The  wonder  is  rather  that  this  drug  falsehood 
keeps  coming  to  the  surface  even  in  the  lay 
mind.  It  is  only  another  proof  that  popular 
prejudice  is  in  the  tenacious  thing  the  most 
world,  a  mysterious  power  that  sometimes 
survives  for  centuries  the  sword-thrusts  of 
the  truth. 

Surely,  in  any  event,  the  authorities  ^ cited 
in  this  chapter,  their  analyses  and  their  de- 
ductions, should  be  conclusive  evidence  in 
•favor  of  the  cigarette  and  acquit  it  of  the 
charges  made  against  it.  Indeed,  these  analy- 
ses should  do  even  more.  The  reputable 


140  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

chemists  who  made  them  not  only  affirma- 
tively attest  the  purity  of  cigarettes,  but  nega- 
tively deny  any  impurity.  It  is  impossible  to 
conceive  of  a  more  complete  and  forcible  man- 
ner of  arriving  at  a  correct  conclusion. 

To  say  that  such  reports  do  not  demolish 
the  opium,  the  arsenic  and  a1*  :  iher  drugs-in- 
cigarettes  fallacies  would  be  to  say  that  the 
science  of  chemistry  has  absolutely  no  value 
as  a  means  to  determine  physical  facts,  and  I, 
for  one,  am  loath  to  believe  that  any  educated 
man  would  make,  at  this  period  of  the  world's 
progress,  any  such  assertion. 

To  quote  again,  the  cigarette  consists  of 
"nothing  but  pure  tobacco  and  the  purest 
product  of  the  paper-maker's  art." 

And  now,  what  about  nicotine? 


CHAPTER  X 

SCIENTIFIC  VIEWS  ON  SMOKE 

Errors  of  Medical  and  Popular  Opinion — Scientific  Research 

in  Europe — How  Much  Nicotine  Does  Science  Find? — 

Experiments    on    Human    Beings — Does   Smoking 

Cause  111  Health?— -Judging  the  Well  by  the 

111— Faulty  Iodine  Method  of  Analysis. 

THERE  is  one  phase  of  the  cigarette 
question  upon  which  all  the  enemies  of 
the  cigarette  have  united,  and  that  phase 
is  embodied,  to  their  minds,  in  the  one  word 
"nicotine."  Nicotine,  they  argue,  is  a  poi- 
son; cigarettes  contain  nicotine;  hence,  to 
take  cigarette  smoke  into  your  mouth  is  to 
put  poison  there.  The  proposition  does,  in- 
deed, seem  simple ;  it  certainly  expresses  a  be- 
lief widespread  enough  to  justify  considera- 
tion here  and  now. 

Is  nicotine  harmful  to  normal  man?  Does 
the  tobacco  of  the  cigarette  contain  much  of 
it?  What,  in  short,  is  the  composition  of 
cigarette  smoke? 

You  have  but  to  examine  carefully  with  a  free 
mind  the  pleas  of  the  cigarette's  opponents 
in  order  to  be  struck  with  one  salient  fact: 
nearly  all  the  arguments  of  these  opponents 
are  based  on  the  results  of  experiments  made 
upon  the  lower  forms  of  animals.  That  sort 
of  thing  is  sensational;  it  is  easily  written;  it 
is  more  easily  read.  But  it  does  not  neces- 
sarily affect  the  problem  of  man's  relation  to 
the  cigarette.  Again,  a  goodly  number  of  the 
arguments  of  these  opponents  have  to  do  with 

141 


142  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

the  use  of  tobacco  during  ill  health  or  disease. 
That,  too,  is  sensational,  easily  written  and 
easily  rea,d;  but  that,  too,  is  unscientific.  To 
arrive  at  a  scientific  solution  of  the  problem, 
it  is  necessary  to  consider  directly  and  pri- 
marily the  effect  of  nicotine  on  human  beings 
in  ordinary  health  and  among  the  ordinary 
conditions  of  human  society. 

Why  is  that  consideration  never  made  in 
America?  It  has  been  made  elsewhere,  as  you 
will  see,  and  made,  moreover,  by  competent 
experimenters;  but  it  has  generally  happened 
that  the  experimenters  were  eminent  Euro- 
pean scientists  writing  in  languages  not  easy 
for  the  American  press  to  translate,  and  com- 
piling tables  and  drawing  technical  deduc- 
tions that  require  more  labor  than  the  busy 
pen  of  the  journalist  can  find  time  to  provide. 

The  statements  that  are  now  about  to  be 
made  are  the  outcome  of  information  which, 


Scientific  *n  ^tse^'  *s  t*16  result  of  careful 
Research  an(^  earnest  research  by  a  medi- 
f-n  cal  authority  who  has  consist- 

Europe  ently  sought  his  facts  not  only  in 

the  scientific  publications  of 
Europe  and  America,  but  also  directly  from 
clinic  and  laboratory  experts  in  the  Continen- 
tal centers  of  learning,  whose  methods  of  ar- 
riving at  truth  are  beyond  cavil. 

Those  methods  —  the  methods  of  technical 
investigation  into  the  make-up  and  effect  of 
tobacco  smoke  in  general  and  of  cigarette 
smoke  in  particular  —  require  a  knowledge  of 
chemistry  and  physiology;  they  require  the 
comparison  of  the  make-up  and  effects  of  the 


SCIENTIFIC  VIEWS  ON  SMOKE  143 

different  forms  of  tobacco  smoke — the  smoke 
of  the  pipe,  the  cigar  and  the  cigarette — and 
they  require  an  ability  to  compare  the  differ- 
ent conditions  under  which  the  tobacco  is 
smoked.  The  tests  themselves  are  compli- 
cated ;  to  be  judged  adequately  they  must  be 
known  in  detail. 

The  recent  history  of  these  studies  is  told  in 
a  carefully  prepared  monograph  by  Dr.  Pawin- 
ski,  published  in  Polish  (Gazeta  Lekarski, 
1913,  xxxiii,  pp.  682,  710).  Cigarettes  evidently 
are  largely  consumed  in  such  countries  as 
Poland  and  Russia,  as  indicated  by  the  some- 
what earlier  investigations  made  by  Professor 
J.  J.  Pontag  and  others.  These  men,  like 
Pawinski,  published  reports  on  the  effect  of 
inhaling  cigarette  smoke — reports  in  which 
the  composition  of  the  tobacco  itself  is  given 
in  figures,  together  with  a  complete  analysis 
of  the  substances  found  during  the  process  of 
combustion. 

Still  another  valuable  essay  that  should  not 
be  passed  over  by  the  student  is  that  of  Biffis, 
who  made  a  careful  comparison  of  the  effect 
of  cigarette  smoke  on  smokers  and  non- 
smokers,  nor  should  one  forget  the  important 
contribution  by  the  Dutch  professor,  P.  K. 
Pel,  head  of  the  Medical  Clinic  in  Am- 
sterdam. 

It  is  the  appearance  of  these  publications, 
and  the  detailed  knowledge  of  the  subject 
thus  put  into  our  hands,  that  has  aroused  the 
new  and  widespread  interest  of  earnest  medi- 
cal investigators.  They  are  the  most  import- 


144  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

ant  addition  to  our  authorities  on  tobacco 
since  the  publication  of  the  articles  of  Kiss- 
ling,  Vohl,  Eulenburg,  Lehmann  and  Haber- 
mann.  The  works  of  this  group  will  also  be 
carefully  considered,  but  on  the  particular 
point  now  under  discussion — that  is,  the  facts, 
not  the  opinions,  about  cigarette  smoking — 
it  is  the  new  researches  of  Pawinski,  Pontag, 
Biffis  and  Pel  and  their  group  that  throw  the 
most  light. 

X^The  present  tendency  of  competent  stu- 
/    dents  of  tobacco  is  toward  the  belief  that  nico- 
tine seldom  occurs  in  cigarette  smoke  in  suffi- 
cient  quantity   to   exert   any   physiological 
effects  at  all  and  that,  if  the  cigarette  is  harm- 
ful in  some  cases,  the  cause  must  be  some- 
/    thing  other  than  nicotine. 

How  much  nicotine  does  science,  which  has 
no  end  to  gain  save  the  truth,  find  in  the 
cigarette?  Kolprakstchy  and  Nikolski  ana- 
lyzed certain  Russian  brands  and  reported  a 
find  of  two  per  cent.  Dr.  Frohlich,  another 
authority,  pronounced,  however,  that  the  pro- 
portion of  nicotine  was  lower  even  than  that. 
As  for  the  cigarette  in  general,  Frohlich 
agrees  with  the  writers  in  The  Lancet,  of  Lon- 
don, and  the  British  Medical  Journal,  who 
base  their  statement  on  elaborate  analyses  of 
many  kinds  of  cigarettes,  including  the  popu- 
lar American  brands,  and  who  unite  in  declar- 
ing that  their  investigations  show  that  the 
most  accurate  methods  of  investigation  give 
scarcely  one  per  cent. 

These   essays   may  be   regarded   as   the 


SCIENTIFIC  VIEWS  ON  SMOKE  145 

poison  and  the  antidote,  according  as  the 
reader  favors  abstinence  or  ..  .  , 
smoking.  The  writers  are  not  "°">M™h 
too  prejudiced  on  the  abstinence  n  mcofww 
side,  and  their  work  itself  is  thor-  Uoes  ^??nj* 
ough  and  most  skillful;  it  is  new  find. 

to  the  American  public  and  it  proceeds  from 
men  who  display  a  profound  knowledge  of 
their  art  and  an  extensive  experience  of 
disease.  One  wishes,  nevertheless,  to  be  en- 
tirely fair,  so  that,  when  authorities  disagree 
on  the  percentage  of  nicotine  to  be  found  in 
cigarette  tobacco,  one  is  justified  in  asking  at 
least  a  little  more  evidence  before  accepting 
the  theory  that  the  smoking  of  cigarettes  is 
connected  with  effects  not  established — is,  in 
short,  the  cause  of  any  of  the  ills  that  flesh 
is  generally  supposed  to  be  heir  to. 

Nobody  is  better  qualified  to  speak  on  the 
question  of  tobacco  smoke  than  Professor 
K.  B.  Lehmann,  of  the  Hygienic  Institute  in 
the  University  of  Wurzburg.  His  exhaust- 
ive essay  on  "Chemical  and  Toxicological 
Studies  of  Tobacco"  is  the  most  notable  ex- 
ception to  the  ordinary  run  of  literature  upon 
smoking.  The  original  was  published  in  the 
Archiv  fur  Hygiene,  1908-9.  One  of  its  dis- 
tinguishing features  is  the  studies  on  ciga- 
rettes carried  out  simultaneously  by  his  as- 
sistants. Professor  Lehman  thus  sums  up  his 
conclusions  regarding  the  alleged  connection 
between  cigarettes  and  diseases: 

The  following1  considerations  and  experiences  are 
obviously  opposed  to  the  belief  that  the  bad  effects 


146  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

of  tobacco  smoking  are  due,  partly  or  wholly,  to  nico- 
tine. 

(a)  Vegetable  leaves,  free  from  nicotine,  when 
smoked  produce  on  lads  the  same  effects  as  tobacco 
sm<5ke.    Such  are  the  leaves  of  castania,  the  walnut, 
potato,  Spanish  root. 

(b)  Other  writers  have  found  in  tobacco  smoke, 
besides  nicotine,  other  poisonous  substances,  which 
xannot  be  ignored. 

I       (c)    Experience  and  many  facts  of  my  own  obser- 
/    vation  show  that  without  further  evidence  there  is 
J     no  proof  that  the  strength  of  tobacco  and  its  quan- 
\    tity  of  nicotine  are  proportional.* 

Nor  did  Professor  Lehmann  content  him- 
self with  that.  Like  a  thorough  scientist,  he 
...  .  now  proceeded  to  estimate  the 

',xpe        nts    cornparative  effects  of  nicotine 

??  and  other  substances  in  tobacco 

",m<  smoke.  He  carried  out  his  experi- 

ments with   consummate    skill, 
and  his  subjects  were  young  men  and  lads.  He 
discovered  that,  although  the  ultimate  prop- 
erty of  the  smoke  might  for  some  time  elude 
the  scientist,  the  essential  properties  do  not  de- 
pend on  nicotine  or  any  poisonous  substance. 
Carginale  did  work  that  ably  substantiated 
Lehmann's.     He  tried  to  seize  and  analyze 
I   the  elusive  quality  by  artificial  means.     Ex- 
f   perimenting  on  animals,  he  exposed  them  to 
*£.     an   atmosphere   of  smoke   from   cigars   and 
N  cigarettes,  now  of  tobacco  containing  nico- 
/  tine  and  again  of  tobacco  free  from  nicotine. 
He  found  no  difference  in  the  effects  of  the 
1  smoke  from  the  two  kinds  of  tobacco.     Pre- 
\  sumably  no  poisonous  currents  flowed  from 

*Archiv  fur  Hygiene.      Vol.  Ixviii.    Page  303. 


SCIENTIFIC  VIEWS  ON  SMOKE  147 

either  kind.  The  animals  were  not  affected 
except  by  overwhelming  and  stifling  volumes 
of  smoke. 

The  inference  is  clear.  No  one  can  satis- 
factorily account  for  the  different  effects  of 
cigarette  smoke  on  the  human  machine;  it 
appears  to  be  a  matter  of  temperament.  That 
there  is  something,  perhaps  in  the  air,  which 
tempers  and  changes  cigarette  smoke  is  in- 
contestable. One  individual  in  a  close  room, 
another  in  the  cool  air;  one  individual  in  Eu- 
rope, another  in  America — each  is  affected  dif- 
ferently. Though  the  cigarettes  may  be  of 
the  same  kind,  the  different  individuals  who 
smoke  them  manifest  as  many  different  char- 
acters— what  the  scientists  call  an  acquired 
character,  which  is  unexplained  by  the  simple 
laws  of  health. 

It  is  absurd  to  expect  a  man  truthfully  to 
tell  you  whether  rye-bread  is  harmful,  when 
he  can  base  his  opinion  only  upon  his  knowl- 
edge of  alcohol ;  it  is  equally  absurd  to  expect 
him  to  tell  you  whether  cigarette  smoking  is 
harmful  when  his  opinion  is  based  solely  upon 
his  knowledge  of  nicotine.  The  difference 
between  the  effect  of  cigarette  smoke  and  the 
effect  of  nicotine  is  sufficiently  large — so 
much  so  that  to  disregard  it  altogether  is  to  be 
guilty  of  the  gravest  of  scientific  errors.  By 
the  same  process  of  reasoning  we  return  to 
the  fallacy  of  confusing  the  effects  of  a  sub- 
stance in  illness  with  its  effects  in  health.  In 
certain  illnesses  a  glass  of  milk  is  fatal. 

Is  there,  in  brief,  a  true  connection  between 


148  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

cigarette  smoking  and  ill  health?     To  that 
query  is  reduced  the  entire  ques- 

c  e*L-  tion  °*  the  harm  or  benefit  of 

Smokmg  cigarettes ;  and  yet,  with  all  that 
rn  t/e  t  L9  we  know  of  human  nature  and  its 
weakness,  and  with  all  that  we 
know  of  the  ignorance  prevailing  even  now 
about  the  cigarette  in  medical  circles,  it  is 
difficult  to  credit  the  bald  assertion  that  the 
cigarette  is  a  cause  of  ill  health. 

Doubtless  the  cigarette  has  in  many  cases 
been  smoked  so  excessively  that  the  effects  of 
the  smoke  and  the  force  of  the  habit  have 
given  large  opportunities  for  the  develop- 
ment of  diseases  already  existing;  but  "op- 
portunities for  development"  are  a  far  cry 
from  "cause."  Doubtless,  too,  we  have  all,  or 
nearly  all,  certain  tendencies  toward  disease 
and  certain  duties  involving  the  care  of  our 
health;  but  it  is  not  those  tendencies  or  those 
duties  that  are  referred  to  by  the  critics  who 
would  connect  the  cigarette  with  physical 
disability. 

Nor  is  the  influence  of  zeal  to  be  wholly 
overlooked.  I  am  not  here  questioning  the 
motives  of  the  visionary  doctor  or  the  im- 
petuous legislator,  but  I  am  recalling  the  truth 
that  zeal  is  often  short-sighted — that  it  can 
rarely  see  anything  but  what  it  wants  to  see. 
The  anti-cigarette  advocate  is  usually  exploit- 
ed by  political  and  social  agencies  whose  in- 
terests are  naturally  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the 
emotional  aspects  of  human  nature.  It  may 
be  well  to  inquire  whether  his  attitude  toward 
the  cigarette  will  bear  a  rigid,  scientific  scru 


; 


SCIENTIFIC  VIEWS  ON  SMOKE  149 

tiny  and  whether  a  prejudice  against  smoking 
cigarettes  is  justified  by  exact  knowledge. 

It  is  my  belief,  and  the  belief  of  the  expert 
authority  whom  I  sought  for  information  on 
the  medical  aspect  of  this  subject,  that  doc- 
tors should  be  advisers  on  cigarette  smoking 
in  disease  rather  than  in  health. 

It  is  surprising  to  find  how  little  they  know 
about  the  relation  of  the  cigarette  to  the 
healthy  man.  They  have  a  great  deal  to  say 
about  the  effects  of  the  cigarette  on  the  man 
suffering  from  this  disease  of  the  heart,  from 
that  disease  of  the  lungs,  or  from  the  other 
disease  of  the  arteries;  but  of  the  effect  of  the 
cigarette  on  a  man  in  good  health — and  as  to 
whether  there  is  any  effect  at  all — they  have 
nothing  scientific  to  report. 

These  non-scientific  advisers  conclude, 
lowever  tacitly,  that  what  the  cigarette  does 
to  the  ill  man  it  must  do  to  the  man  who  is 
ivell. 

The  fallacy  of  this  confusion  of  the  well 
nan  with  the  ill  has,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in- 
'uriated  the  European  scientists  .  ,  . 

who    have    devoted    years    o£          Judging 
scholarly  labor  to  the  investiga-  ...  /7  , e 

:ion   of  the   cigarette.      It  has  h    m 

nfuriated  them  quite  as  much 
as  they  were  disturbed  by  the  methods  em- 
ployed even  in  the  investigations  regarding 
;he  sick  man. 

A  case  in  point,  a  distinguished  case,  is  that 
the  famous  Italian  chemist  and  physiol- 
Dgist  Bosi,  perhaps  the  greatest  living  author- 
ty  on  tobacco  smoke.  As  long  ago  as  1909, 


150  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Bosi,  in  the  Riforma  Medica  (p.  850),  enu- 
merated the  methods  of  the  investigators.  He 
told  of  experiments  with  injections  of  nico- 
tine, injections  of  tobacco  emulsions,  and  of 
solutions  of  the  oily  products  of  the  burnt 
leaves  in  cigars  and  cigarettes;  and,  in  a  final 
burst  of  impatience  with  the  cigarette's  ene- 
mies, he  dismissed  the  entire  subject  with  the 
question:  "How  can  we  have  confidence  in 
results  that  are  neither  logical  nor  rational?" 

Nor  will  the  unprejudiced  disagree  with 
Bosi.  The  fallacies  that  he  is  angry  with 
are  sufficiently  obvious,  and  one  of  the  com- 
monest of  them  is  this  fundamental  error :  the 
average  critic  of  the  cigarette,  bent  on  the 
search  for  nicotine,  finds  out,  or  thinks  that 
he  finds  out,  certain  facts  about  nicotine,  and 
jumps  to  the  conclusion  that  the  effects  of 
smoke — that  is  to  say,  tobacco  smoke — are 
necessarily  the  same.  How  unscientific  that 
is  surely  need  not  be  elaborated  upon. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  cases  of  most 
patients  examined  by  physicians,  the  deduc- 
tion from  nicotine  to  smoke  has  been  again 
and  again  demonstrated  to  be  wholly  incor- 
rect. It  was  probably  such  a  critic  of  tobacco 
that  Carlyle  had  to  do  with — Carlyle,  who 
lived  the  simplest  of  lives — when  he  wrote : 

I  had  ridden  to  Edinburgh,  there  to  consult  a  doc- 
tor, having  at  last  reduced  my  complexities  to  a 
single  question:  Is  this  disease  curable  by  medicine, 
or  is  it  chronic,  incurable  except  by  regimen,  if  even 
so?  This  question  I  earnestly  put;  got  response,  "It 
is  all  tobacco,  Sir ;  give  up  tobacco."  Gave  it  instant- 
ly and  strictly  up.  Found  after  long  months  that  I 


SCIENTIFIC  VIEWS  ON  SMOKE  151 

might  as  well  have  ridden  sixty  miles  in  the  opposite 
direction,  and  poured  my  sorrows  into  the  long  hairy 
ear  of  the  first  jackass  I  came  upon,  as  into  this  select 
medical  man's,  whose  name  I  will  not  mention.* 

Unusually  good  work  has  recently  been 
done  by  E.  V.  Zebrowski  and  reported  in  the 
Russian  Journal,  Russki  Wratsch.  Zebrowski 
also  experimented  with  the  effect  of  tobacco 
smoke  on  animals,  but  he  did  so  intelligently. 
In  his  exhaustive  report  there  are  scientific 
method  and  definite  aim,  for  the  cigarette 
is  the  sole  object  of  his  investigation,  and  in 
this  respect  no  American  experiments  can 
parallel  the  precision  and  unity  of  the  Rus- 
sian's. In  spite  of  a  few  difficulties  in  the 
method,  the  sincerity  and  directness  of  the 
author  make  his  investigations  a  fit  instru- 
ment for  enlightening  the  public  in  regard  to 
the  cigarette.  He  describes  his  process  in 
these  words : 

The  animals  (which  were  rabbits)  were  put  in  a 
glass  chamber,  where  they  were  exposed  for  several 
months  to  the  action  of  tobacco  smoke.  The  cham- 
ber was  made  of  glass  of  a  capacity  of  twenty  liters, 
with  three  holes  made  vertically  in  one  of  its  sides. 
A  rabbit  was  put  in  the  chamber ;  a  cigarette  fixed  in 
the  lowest  of  the  holes,  the  middle  one  being  stopped 
with  wadding,  and  the  upper  connected  with  a  water 
pump  by  means  of  a  system  of  glass  and  rubber  tubes. 
The  current  of  air  from  the  pump  and  the  rate  at 
which  the  cigarette  burned  were  regulated  by  alter- 
nately removing  and  replacing  the  wadding.  The 
cigarette,  which  contained  forty  grains  of  Machorka 
(a  cheap  Russian  variety)  tobacco,  was  lighted,  and 
the  pump  started.  Combustion  took  place  in  fifteen 

*Carlyle's  Reminiscences. 


152  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

minutes.  At  intervals  the  experiment  was  repeated, 
eight  or  ten  cigarettes  being  consumed,  or  about  an 
ounce  of  Machorka  tobacco. 

Zebrowski  recognized  that  it  is  cigarette 
smoke,  not  a  pure  form  of  nicotine,  that  must 
be  studied.  Furthermore,  he  recognized  the 
varying  quality  of  cigarettes — that  Machorka 
tobacco,  for  example,  contains  0.85  per  cent,  of 
nicotine,  whereas  the  higher  priced  tobaccos 
used  in  his  experiments  contain  but  0.23 — and 
that  it  would  not  be  fair  to  conclude  that  the 
effects  from  the  one  sort  would  be  the  same  as 
the  effects  from  the  other. 

Those  effects  are  clearly  described.  Care 
was  taken  that  the  fumes  should  be  breathed 
in  conditions  as  nearly  as  possible  approach- 
ing those  of  actual  smoking.  The  experiment 
was  continued  for  months,  and  the  observa- 
tions and  records  were  all  made  with  the  ut- 
most care. 

What  was  the  result? 

The  rabbits  were  at  first  restless;  then  they 
became  stupid;  and  then  they  lost  appetite 
and  flesh.  Eventually,  as  the  subjects  ac- 
quired the  tobacco  habit,  as  one  might  say, 
there  was  at  least  a  partial  recovery. 

That  is  absolutely  all  that  the  enemies  of 

the  cigarette  can  find  to  support  their  cause  in 

-  the   famous   Zebrowski   experi- 

\L  .       ,          ment,  and  it  contains  the  whole 

ynamp/i          strength  and  the  whole  weak- 

J?.r     €  ness  of  the  anti-cigarette  case. 

The  rabbits  ate  less  and  weighed 

less  after  all  those  months  in  a  glass  jar  and 

after  inhaling  for  that  time  in  great  quantities 


SCIENTIFIC  VIEWS  ON  SMOKE  153 

a  form  of  smoke  that  they  were  not  used  to  in 
small  quantities. 

Unfortunately,  Zebrowski  did  not  make  ex- 
periments to  show  that  the  confinement  with- 
out any  smoke  would  have  produced  the  same 
effects. 

But  what  the  Zebrowski  experiment  really— v 
shows  on  behalf  of  the  cigarette  is  a  vastly 
different  matter.    It  shows  that  nicotine  is  no    / 
more  dangerous  in  the  cigarette  than  in  the 
pipe  or  the  cigar.    It  shows  that  nicotine  can-   \. 
not  get  into  the  blood  by  means  of  smoke  in-    /* 
haled  into  the  lungs.    It  shows  that  the  char-    ( 
acteristic  enjoyment  of  smoking  is  the  result    \ 
of  purely  chemical  and  physical  reactions, 
causing  changes  in  the  nerves,  in  the  senses^' 
and  in  the  tension  of  the  arteries. 

It  may  show,  what  everyone  admits,  that 
cigarette  smoking  in  excessive  amounts,  under 
abnormal  conditions,  or  by  persons  thereto- 
fore unused  to  it,  does  affect  appetite  and 
digestion;  but  it  unquestionably  shows  that 
there  is  a  recovery  even  after  such  excesses, 
and  it  thus  goes  leagues  toward  demonstrat- 
ing the  hypothesis  that  a  normal  use  of  cigar- 
ettes, and  even  what  some  persons  would  call 
an  excessive  use  of  them,  must  produce,  not 
ill  effects,  but  equilibrium  and  normal  ex- 
change. 

What  is  the  weight  of  opinion  in  regard  to 
the  absorption  of  nicotine  and  other  products 
of  burning  tobacco?  Here  are  some  of  the 
opinions  of  men  who  use  scientific  reasoning 
and  methods: 


154  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Frohlich  says:  "It  is  by  no  means  proved 
that  free  nicotine  occurs  in  the  smoke — it  is 
combined  with  malic,  citric,  oxalic  acids,  and 
it  is  probable  that  this  compound  of  nicotine  is 
dispelled,  unchanged,  with  the  particles  of 
carbon  in  the  gases  of  the  combustion  of  to- 
bacco."* 

Pawinski  (Gazeta  Lekarski,  op.  cit.) :  "The 
question  concerning  the  occurrence  of  pure 
nicotine  in  the  smoke  from  cigars,  pipes,  and 
cigarettes  is  not  determined." 

Bosi  (Ri forma  Medica,  1909,  p.  850) :  "Nico- 
tine is  so  volatile  that  only  0.5  per  cent,  passes 
into  tobacco  smoke." 

Thorns  (Verhandlungen  der  Gas.  Deutsch 
en  Naturforscher,  1899,  p.  664) :  "The  chemi- 
cal analysis  of  the  smoke  from  twenty  sam- 
ples of  tobacco  showed  1.12  per  cent,  of  nico- 
tine." Professor  Thorns  is  head  of  the  De- 
partment of  Pharmacy,  University  of  Berlin; 
but  as  he  used  the  iodine  method  of  estimating 
the  nicotine  in  cigarette  smoke,  too  much  im- 
portance should  not  be  attached  to  his  result. 
The  iodine  method  gives  too  high  a  propor- 
tion of  nicotine,  but  even  this  method  in  the 
hands  of  later  investigators  has  revealed  a 
smaller  quantity  than  that  discovered  by  Pro- 
fessor Thorns. 

Thus  in  the  Pharmaceutical  Journal,  1912, 
p.  718,  it  is  reported  that  the  iodine  method 
yielded  the  following  percentages:  0.0795  and 
0.1147. 

*Deutsche  Med.  Wochenschr,  1911.     Page  2286. 


SCIENTIFIC  VIEWS  ON  SMOKE  155 

Chapin  (U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture, 
Bureau  of  Animal  Industry,  Bull.  133),  prefers 
Toth's  method  to  Kissling's,  _. 

which  has  the  drawback  that  all 
the  alkaline  substances  go  over 
into  the  distillate  and  are  reckon- 
ed  as  nicotine.  A  similar  objec- 
tion to  the  method  is  made  in  The  Lancet,  of 
London. 

Pontag  (Zeitschrift  fur  die  Unters.  der 
Nahrungs — und  Genussmittel,  1903,  Vol.  6, 
p.  673)  uses  a  somewhat  different  method.  He 
tries  to  drive  home  the  statement  that  long 
ago  was  disproved,  to  the  effect  that  the 
strength  of  the  cigarette  is  proportionate  to 
its  nicotine.  He  publishes  quite  remarkable 
tables  intended  to  substantiate  this  belief.  For 
example,  in  a  series  of  120  cigarettes  exam- 
ined, the  smoke  contained  0.61  per  cent,  of 
nicotine.  Cigars  and  smoking  tobacco,  on  the 
other  hand,  gave  higher  figures — 1.4  per  cent, 
and  2.7  per  cent. 

Professor  Lehmann  examines  these  various 
methods  and  results  critically.      His  conclu- 
sion is  that  in  every  case  the  parallel  between 
the    strength    of   the    tobacco   and    that   of 
the  smoke  is  defective.     It  is  evident  that  the    / 
chemical  elements  that  compose  the  strength    / 
of  tobacco  are  not  nicotine  and  its  compounds.    I 
There  is  an  inherent  quality  in  tobacco — its    \ 
strength,    flavor,    or    perfume — which    has  ^) 
hitherto  defied  analysis. 

Habermann  institutes  a  close  comparison 
between  the  quantities  of  nitotine  in  the 


156  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

smoke  of  cigarettes  and  pipes.    He  finds  more 
nicotine  in  pipe  smoke.   Thus : 

Nicotine 

Weight     in  smoke 

Hungarian  cigarettes  18.62  1.80 

"Sport"  cigarettes  12.76  1.70 

Egyptian—three  kinds  12.87  1.10 

Knaster*— pipe  tobacco  \ 

1  13.73  3.24 

2  13.41  2.56 

3  13.66  2.25 

4  13.38  1.64* 

Habermann  analyzed  the  nicotine  in  the  cig- 
arette ends.  He  explains  how  the  effect  on  the 
smoker  may  be  increased  by  smoking  ciga- 
rettes and  cigars  to  the  ends,  in  which  the  nic- 
otine and  products  of  the  combustion  of  to- 
bacco are  condensed,  making  this  part  of  a 
cigarette  or  cigar  very  strong.  The  proportion 
of  nicotine  there  was  found  to  be  3.3  per  cent. 
His  results  confirm  those  of  The  Lancet  and 
the  British  Medical  Journal.  Thus  in  The 
Lancet: 

r^  1.    Pipe  mixtures  contain  the  largest  amount 
of  nicotine  (2.04  to  2.85  per  cent).     Egyptian 
1      and  Turkish  cigarettes  come  next  (1.4  to  1.6) ; 
\,     a  Havana  cigar  contains  the  least  of  all. 
.•-  2.    The  cigarette,  whether  Egyptian,  Turkish 
or  American,  yields  the  least  amount  of  its  total 
nicotine  to  the  smoke  found,  while  the  pipe 
yields  a  very  large  proportion,  f 


*Hoppe-Seyler's    Zeitschrift   fur    Phys.    Chemie.       1902-4. 
Vol.  40.    Page  154. 

tTAe  Lancet,    1912.     Vol.  I.     Page  946. 


SCIENTIFIC  VIEWS  ON  SMOKE  157 

And  in  the  British  Medical  Journal: 

Pipe  Tobaccos:  Nicotine 

A.  Very  mild  honey  dew  1.65% 

B.  Smoking  mixture,  medium  2.04% 

C.  Perique  3.29% 

D.  Cavendish  3.83% 

Cigars : 

E.  Havana,  mild  1.09% 

F.  Havana,  same  make,  strongest  1.53% 

G.  Havana,  another  make,  "mild"  1.95% 
H.    Indian,  strongest  1.85% 

Cigarettes  (after  removing  paper) 

K.     Egyptian  1.13% 

L.     Turkish  1.30% 

M.    Virginia  2.24% 

N.     Common  2.02%* 

In  the  Lancet  there  is  a  comparison  of  the 
proportion  of  nicotine  in  the  smoke  of  pipes 

and  cigarettes:  Nicotine 

Cigarettes :  in  smoke 

Virginian  0.60% 

Turkish  0.51% 

Egyptian  0.21% 

Smoking  Mixture: 

Perique  2.25% 

Cavendish  0.57% 

Cigars : 

Havana  0.20% 

One  statement,  but  surely  no  more,  should 
perhaps  be  made  about  certain  letters  that 
have  lately  appeared  under  the  caption 
"Cigarettes  and  Cigars  Compared"  in  sev- 
eral journals.  Anybody  who  has  read  the 
present  chapter  will  now  understand  that 
those  communications  are  examples  of  curious 

^British  Medical  Journal,   1909.     Vol.  I.     Page  911. 


158  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

ignorance  in  writers  of  official  position  on 
such  matters  as  the  smoking  of  cigars  and 
cigarettes  and  their  comparative  virtues.  The 
most  recent  of  these  critics  attack  all  ciga- 
rettes alike  and  make  many  gross  mistakes 
about  what  are  really  undisputed  facts  con- 
cerning them.  In  their  eyes  the  non-smoker 
can  do  no  wrong,  and  the  cigarette  can  do  no 
right.  Both  assumptions  are  absurd.  Any- 
body can  balance  the  results  of  the  tables  just 
quoted,  and  anybody  who  does  that  will  see 
;that  the  smoke  of  a  good  mild  cigar  and  that 
of  an  Egyptian  or  Turkish  cigarette  contain 
about  the  same  amount  of  nicotine. 

On  the  data  thus  presented,  the  friend  of 
the  cigarette  might  confidently  rest  this 
phase  of  his  case.  The  authors  quoted  are  all 
in  the  very  first  rank  of  scientists,  and  the 
weight  of  their  opinion  brings  the  balance 
sharply  down  into  the  cigarette's  favor.  In 
the  case  of  both  cigars  and  cigarettes,  says 
The  Lancet:  "The  results  show  no  founda- 
tion whatever  for  the  exaggerated  statements 
that  have  been  made."*  The  nicotine  ghost 
is  laid,  and  the  smoke  superstition  passes  up 
the  chimney. 

^Analytical  Sanitary  Commission  on  American  Cigarettes, 
1899,  Vol.  II,  p.  1607. 


CHAPTER  XI 

POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO 

Differences  of  Taste  a  Source  of  Argument — The  Case  of 
the  More  Extreme   Critics — Beef-Tea  as  a  Mode  of 
Inebriety— An    Expert    Witness    Testifies — The 
Carbon    Monoxide    Myth — The    Superstition 
about  Furfural—Coltsfoot  as  a  Sub- 
stitute for  Tobacco. 

A  LTHOUGH  the  so-called  "nicotine  argu- 
/A  ment"  is  the  favorite  with  the  critics 
of  tobacco  in  general  and  of  the 
cigarette  in  particular,  it  is  by  no  means  the 
only  one.  That  we  have  seen  in  previous 
chapters  and  are  still  to  see  in  chapters  to  fol- 
low. Here  and  now  it  is  my  purpose  to  con- 
sider a  little  group  of  alleged  arguments  of 
the  wildest  sort,  which  are,  for  the  most  part, 
among  the  most  recent  in  the  controversy  and 
which,  wild  as  they  are,  have  found  a  really 
amazing  circulation. 

Primarily,  however,  it  should  be  pointed 
out  that  this  chapter  is  strictly  an  examina- 
tion of  the  statements  of  those  who  oppose 
the  cigarette  and,  by  way  of  reply,  of  those 
who  favor  it.  There  is  to  be  nothing  whatever 
said  about  those  straightforward  people  who 
simply  preach  their  dislike  of  tobacco,  or 
whose  belief  in  the  injury  resulting  from  the 
excessive  use  of  it  prompts  them  to  utterances 
that,  even  if  inexact,  are  at  least  conscien- 
tiously conceived. 

Nobody  expects — and  surely  nobody  will 
find — unanimity  of  opinion  in  this  singularly 

159 


160  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

diverse  world  of  ours.  Perhaps  nobody  wants 
it,  for  if  all  men  were  of  one  mind  progress 
would  cease;  and  certainly  sincere  disagree- 
ment on  matters  of  collective  importance 
gives  zest  to  life  and  a  necessary  spur  to 
advancement. 

There  are  just  two  things  on  which  at  least 
we  Americans  agree:  we  agree  in  a  tendency 
to  criticize  one  another's  personal  tastes  and 
in  disliking,  each  of  us,  any  criticism  of  his 
own.  As  a  nation,  for  instance,  we  have  long 
been  accustomed  to  a  perfectly  unhampered 
and  quite  legitimate  use  of  tea,  coffee  and  to- 
bacco; yet  the  tea  drinker  who  does  not  care 
for  coffee  always  preaches  against  it  and, 
when  the  coffee  drinker  condemns  tea,  always 
resents  that  condemnation  as  an  invasion  of 
his  personal  rights. 

The  cigarette  smoker  often  finds  himself  in 
the  same  position;  but,  though  this  may  be  as 
it  should,  it  does  not  affect  the  ethics  of  the 
abstract  question  as  to  whether  cigarettes— or 
tea,  or  coffee,  as  the  case  may  be — produce 
good  or  ill  effects  upon  the  human  being.  It 
means  simply  that,  out  of  common  courtesy, 
and  without  any  prejudice  to  the  principle  in- 
volved, one  is  occasionally  obliged  to  apolo- 
gize for  the  rational  pleasure  of  a  cup  of  tea  or 
coffee,  or  for  that  of  a  cigarette — and  this  be- 
cause of  no  better  reason  than  that  there  are 
persons  who  cannot  use  anything  in  modera- 
tion, other  persons  who  are  not  permitted  by 
their  peculiar  constitutions  to  use  things  that 
healthy  men  enjoy,  and  still  other  persons 
with  tendencies  perhaps  toward  dyspepsia 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO     161 

and  certainly  toward  hysteria,  who  fancy  that 
the  entire  race  shares  their  ills  and  the 
dangers  to  which  those  ills  lay  them  open. 

It  is  the  person  who,  himself  disliking  to- 
bacco or  unable  to  use  it,  believes  that  all 
mankind  is  like  him — it  is  the  person  who 
would  deprive  all  men  of  what  he  may  not 
enjoy — it  is  that  person  and  his  wilder  theo- 
ries with  whom  I  am  now  about  to  deal.  Only 
the  critics  who  faultily  represent  tobacco  to 
the  public  are  the  concern  of  this  chapter.  To 
the  others  I  would  say  that  I  do  not  advocate 
anything  like  the  abuse  of  tobacco  or  apolo- 
gies for  its  misuse.  To  all,  nevertheless,  I 
ieclare  that  the  public  must  have  something 
setter  to  guide  it  than  the  misleading  stories 
that  from  time  to  time  get  into  print.  Some 
of  the  worst  critics  of  tobacco  are  men  promi- 
nent in  public  life.  Their  utterances  carry 
weight  because  of  their  achievements  along 
totally  different  lines  and  it  is  only  fair  that 
the  people  should  be  shown  how  little  founda- 
tion there  is  for  those  utterances.  Others  are 
men  claiming  to  speak  from  personal  observa- 
tion and  it  is  but  right  that  the  people  should 
be  shown  how  imperfect  that  observation  has 
been. 

Consider  for  a  few  moments  the  extent  to 
which  the  more  extreme  critics  have  gone. 
The  briefest  account  of  it  would         T, 
make  amusing  reading  were  it 
not  that  so  much  that  has  been ..       _ 
put  forward  has  been  advancedMorc  Lx*r*™e 
by  people  who  really  get  a  hear- 
ing and  by  people  who  pretend  to  speak  scien- 


162  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

tifically.  In  reality,  nobody  can  analyze  these 
criticisms  and  retain  a  high  opinion  of  the 
critics'  logical  powers — nobody  can  carefully 
study  them  and  believe  in  the  scientific  attain- 
ments of  those  who  originated  them.  They 
abound  in  misconceptions  which  demonstrate 
not  only  that  the  methods  of  investigation 
were  faulty,  but  that  the  whole  process  was 
based  on  a  misunderstanding  of  the  subject  in 
hand.  The  public  willingly  endures  a  little 
caprice  and  misstatement  as  long  as  valuable 
information  is  somewhere  given,  but  it  will 
not,  when  the  truth  is  discovered,  tolerate 
errors  in  regard  to  matters  of  health  and  prin- 
ciple. 

And  now  to  our  examples.  They  are  chosen 
without  a  bias  in  favor  of  either  side  of  the 
case;  they  have  been  selected  as  genuinely 
typical. 

For  instance,  there  is  a  very  peculiar  med- 
ley of  facts  and  fancies  about  tobacco  in  gen- 
eral in  a  work  bearing  the  inclusive  title  of 
Tobacco  Habit,  by  a  Dr.  Tidswell.  In  it  we 
find  this  quotation  from  Dr.  T.  D.  Crothers: 

The  tobacco  addiction  is  usually  associated  with 
alcohol  or  other  drugs,  hence  the  tobacco  disability  is 
seldom  considered.  In  reality,  tobacco  is  a  narcotic 
poison,  and  its  use  is  not  only  dangerous,  but  it  is 
certain  to  be  followed  with  debility,  mental  perver- 
sion and  exhaustion.* 

Next  consult  that  now  obsolete  work,  The 
Use  and  Abuse  of  Tobacco,  by  Dr.  Lizars,  who 
solemnly  declares : 

*  Tobacco  Habit.      Page  35. 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO     163 

"The  students  attending  the  American  col- 
leges are  said  to  destroy  their  physical  and 
moral  powers  by  smoking  tobacco,  so  as  to 
unfit  them  to  become  useful  members  of 
society."* 

The  students  of  American  colleges  will  be 
pleased  to  hear  this.  But  it  is  no  smiling 
matter,  for  the  chancellor  of  Leland  Stanford 
Jr.  University,  Dr.  David  Starr  Jordan,  once 
wrote  that  cigarette  smokers  are  "concerned 
with  the  sexton  and  the  undertaker !" 

And,  finally,  place  beside  these  so  carefully 
weighed  utterances  this  from  a  Treatise  on 
Tobacco  written  by  Dr.  Budget  a  little  be- 
fore the  day  of  Dr.  Lizars:  that  in  America 
"it  is  no  uncommon  circumstance  to  hear  of 
inquests  on  the  bodies  of  smokers,  especially 
youths,  the  ordinary  verdict  being  'Died  from 
extreme  tobacco  smoking'." 

I  am  not  inventing  these  passages  to  ridi- 
cule the  critics  of  the  cigarette.  The  quota- 
tions are  veracious  and  the  assertions,  amaz- 
ing as  they  now  seem  to  us,  were  at  one  time 
actually  made  and,  in  some  measure,  believe.d. 
Only  so  short  a  time  ago  as  1912,  a  writer  in 
the  Journal  of  Inebriety  (p.  149)  described  the 
escape  of  a  youth  from  capital  punishment — 
because  he  smoked  cigarettes!  The  upright 
judge  charged  the  jury  that  the  prisoner  was 
deranged.  He  was  acquitted,  and  the  news- 
papers announced  his  acquittal  in  such  head- 
lines as:  "Cigarettes  Free  Slayer!" 

It  is  in  the  same  Journal  of  Inebriety  that  a 
writer  thus  criticizes  a  very  moderate  article 

*The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Tobacco,     Page  17. 


164  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

that  had  been  published  in  the  Journal  of  the 
American  Medical  Association: 

The  author  is  very  minute  in.  describing  the  possi- 
ble ill  effects  from  tobacco,  but  finally  ends  in  a  con- 
fused acknowledgment  that  tobacco  may  be  of  some 
value  in  saving  persons  from  collapse,  and  that  one 
or  more  cigars  a  day  may  not  be  injurious  to  certain 
persons.  It  would  seem  that  the  author  himself  must 
be  a  smoker,  and  to  acknowledge  the  facts  and  con- 
clusions from  laboratory  experiments  as  being  be- 
yond all  question,  would  be  to  reflect  on  his  personal 
opinion  and  conduct,  hence  he  takes  the  middle 
ground  and  assumes  that,  while  it  is  a  very  bad 
substance,  it  has  some  good  qualities  and  might  be  of 
service  to  certain  persons.* 

That  remark  to  the  effect  that  the  "author 
himself  must  be  a  smoker"  is  perhaps  intended 
for  delicate  irony ;  but  it  rather  gives  away  the 
critic's  ideas  of  the  qualifications  for  authori- 
tative utterance  upon  the  subject  of  smoking. 
They  are,  obviously,  this :  a  man  who  uses  to- 
bacco is  debarred,  by  the  fact  of  his  use  of  it, 
from  being  a  good  judge  of  it,  a  good  student 
of  its  effect,  or  a  reliable  witness  concern- 
ing it. 

Really,  this  critic  is  a  humorist. 

In  the  same  volume  of  the  Journal  of  In- 
ebriety he  has  an  article  on  "Inebriety  from 
K  fT  Beef-Tea,"  which  gives  him  an 

opportunity  of  developing  the 
^La,  f  ideas  that  possess  his  mind  about 
7  %*  t^ie  £enera*  subject  of  inebriety, 

y  and  about  the  hopes  and  powers 
which  the  new  knowledge  has  opened — it 

^Journal  of  Inebriety,  1914.    Page  79. 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO    165 

gives  him  that  opportunity;  it  gives  us  an  op- 
portunity to  see  at  its  real  value  the  critical 
power  that  he  employed  in  his  attack  on  the 
writer  in  the  Journal  of  the  American  Medical 
Association.  "It  is  a  well  known  fact,"  he 
says,  "that  persons  who  have  drunk  spirits 
and  recovered,  find  a  substitute  in  beef-tea." 
Thus  beef-tea  takes  its  place  among  the 
world's  intoxicants  and  shares  the  evil  reputa- 
tion of  the  cigarette.  "I  have  seen,"  continues 
this  critic — "I  have  seen  many  who  showed 
great  exhilaration  after  using  these  extracts, 
and  later  became  stupid."* 

All  this  sort  of  thing  of  course  convicts  it- 
self in  its  mere  utterance;  but  what  are  we  to 
say  when  in  a  publication  such  as  Education 
(Vol.  29)  Dr.  Crothers  is  quoted,  with  appar- 
ent approval,  in  the  declaration  that,  though 
small  in  amount,  the  "poisonous  products"  of 
cigarettes  are  constantly  taken  into  the  blood 
vessels  of  the  mouth  and  affect  the  senses? 
Whatever  effect  the  preceding  statements 
may  have,  this  one  is  of  the  kind  that  demands 
refutation. 

Nor  is  refutation  from  the  highest  quarters 
far  to  seek.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that 
given  by  no  less  an  authority  than  Sir  Lauder 
Brunton,  and  may  be  found  in  his  highly  au-  ' 
thoritative  volume,  Therapeutics  of  the  Cir- 
culation. It  is  simply  this:  Tobacco  smoke 
affects  the  sensory  nerves  of  the  nostrils  and 
stimulates  them.  One  of  Sir  Lauder's  dis- 
ciples pursues  the  subject  even  farther.  In  a 

*  Journal  of  Inebriety,    1914.    Page   151. 


166  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

remarkably  judicious  paper  on  "Tobacco 
Smoking"  in  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital 
Journal  he  says : 

It  is  popularly  thought  that  nicotine  acts  as  a  direct 
brain  stimulant  much  in  the  same  way  as  coffee  or 
tea,  but  a  simpler  explanation  is  offered  by  Sir  Lau- 
der  Brunt  on,  that  the  effect  is  simply  that  of  stimu- 
lating the  branches  of  the  fifth  nerve,  which  in  some 
way  appears  to  increase  the  blood  supply  of  the 
brain — an  effect  which  can  be  produced  by  eating 
sweets  and  in  other  ways.* 

Here  is  another  illuminating  quotation  from 
St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital  Journal: 

The  smoker  can  afford  to  laugh  *  *  *  when 
quoted  cases  of  "poisoning"  include  influenza,  tabes 
and  dilatation  of  the  heart  as  sequelae  of  each  other 
and  of  tobacco  smoking ;  when  the  soothing  weed  is 
given  as  a  prominent  cause  of  sterility;  and  it  is 
stated  that  even  the  perspiration  of  a  smoker  being 
absorbed  by  his  wife  can  poison  the  ovum  and  lead  to 
abortion;  whilst  the  opinion  is  added  that  the  only 
women  who  suffer  from  cancer  are  the  wives  or 
daughters  of  men  who  have  indulged  to  excess  in 
tobacco. 

After  these  charges  the  production  of  insanity  is 
a  modest  expectation,  but  the  perusal  of  such  non- 
sense induces  the  conclusion  that  so  far  from  to- 
bacco smoking  leading  to  insanity,  there  would  ap- 
pear to  be  irrefutable  evidence  that  the  latter  re- 
sults from  its  abstinence. 

Occasionally  the  prejudice  against  tobacco 
has  gone  even  higher  than  such  admirable 
journals  as  Education.  I  select  one  of  the  most 
recent  and  most  famous,  for  in  any  contro- 
versy it  is  only  fair  to  give  both  sides  every 
possible  chance.  A  writer  in  the  Medical 

*St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital  Journal.    January,  1913. 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO     167 

* 

Times  compiled  what  he  called  "A  Review  of 
Authorities  Opposed  to  Tobacco,"  and  started 
his  article  with  the  following  proposition : 

An  unprejudiced  inquiry  into  the  mental  and  physi- 
ological effects  of  tobacco  smoking  establishes  the 
conviction  that  this  habit,  even  in  moderation,  is 
definitely  and  permanently  injurious  to<  both  mind 
and  body.* 

That  is  not  all.  The  writer  in  the  Medical 
Times  continues  by  quoting  the  physiologist 
Professor  von  Bunge  in  regard  to  the  statis- 
tics as  to  smoking  among  Russian  students, 
saying  that  of  these  (smoking)  students,  12 
per  cent,  were  found  to  be  suffering  from  some 
disease  of  the  alimentary  tract,  as  opposed  to 
10  per  cent,  of  non-smokers. 

This  is  so  bad  that  the  writer  in  the  Medical 
Times,  lightly  mentioning  the  theory  that 
moderate  smoking  is  not  injurious,  declares  it 
as  his  conviction  that  "either  this  position 
must  be  successfully  established,  or  tobacco 
smoking  is  suicidal.  *  *  *  The  following,"  says 
he,  "are  well  recognized  direct  results  of  mod- 
erate habitual  smoking:  Tobacco  blindness, 
a  most  stubborn  form  of  permanent  affection 
of  the  eyes ;  cancer  of  the  lips  and  of  the  tongue 
and  of  the  throat,  diseases  almost  wholly  con- 
fined to  smokers.  Bouchard  of  Paris,  an  au- 
thority on  diseases  of  the  heart  and  blood- 
vessels, names  tobacco  as  one  of  the  leading 
causes  of  these  deadly  maladies,  which  have 
increased  enormously  in  the  last  ten  years. 
Ten  per  cent,  of  all  smokers  have  albumen  in 

*Medical  Times.     June,   1914. 


168  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

the  urine.  Dr.  Wright  of  London  showed 
that  nicotine  lowers  the  power  of  resistance 
of  the  human  body  against  tuberculosis,  and 
post-mortem  examinations  at  the  Phipps  In- 
stitute showed  that  smokers  are  twice  as  sub- 
ject to  tuberculosis  as  non-smokers." 

And  still  we  are  not  at  an  end.  Our  critic 
has  something  to  say  about  carbon  monoxide 
as  a  product  of  tobacco — and,  he  adds,  "four- 
tenths  of  one  per  cent,  [of  carbon  monoxide] 
has  destroyed  human  life." 

I  have  quoted  extensively  from  this  writer — 
more  extensively  possibly  than  he  deserves  to 
be  quoted — but  my  object  is,  as  I  have  al- 
ready indicated,  to  give  a  full  share  of  the  floor 
to  opponents  of  smoking.  The  article  in  the 
Medical  Times  is  one  of  the  most  effective 
attacks  upon  tobacco.  Let  us  now  examine  it 
in  detail. 

First  as  to  the  original  proposition  that  to- 
bacco smoking,  "even  in  moderation,  is  defi- 
-  nitely  and  permanently  injuri- 

^     9  ous   to  both  mind   and   body." 

*p  This  is  a  subtle  way  of  reviving 

f '™fs  the  old  myth  about  the  evil  ef- 

fects of  tobacco  on  the  brain— re- 
viving it  without  taking  the  trouble  to  ad- 
vance any  proofs  in  its  favor.  In  regard  to 
the  effect  of  tobacco  on  the  mental  powers,  let 
us  get  the  word  not  of  an  anonymous  contrib- 
utor to  a  journal,  but  that  of  Sir  Lauder  Brun- 
ton  to  whom  I  recently  referred.  In  the 
famous  Practitioner,  of  London,  he  says: 

Smoking,  in  moderation,  does  not  seem  to  be  in- 
jurious to  grown-up  people,  but  there  appears  to  be 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO     169 

a  general  consensus  of  opinion  that  it  is  very  dis- 
tinctly harmful  to  growing  lads.  In  adults,  smoking 
appears  to  have  a  double  action.  It  will  stimulate 
the  brain  to  increased  activity  and  it  will  also  pro- 
duce a  soothing  effect  in  conditions  of  excitement. 
Its  stimulating  effect  upon  mental  activity  is  probably 
partly  due  to  the  local  irritant  action  of  smoke  upon 
the  mouth  causing  reflexed  dilatation  of  the  ves- 
sels which  supply  the  brain.  Its  action  as  a  sedative 
is  probably  partly  due  to  the  necessity  of  breathing 
rhythmically  while  smoking,  and  to  the  soothing 
effect  of  watching  the  smoke  as  it  issues  from  the 
lips  or  nostrils,  especially  when  it  is  blown  out  in  the 
form  of  rings.  This  is  by  no  means  an  unimportant 
factor,  for  many  people  derive  but  very  little  pleas- 
ure from  smoking  in  the  dark.* 

But  what  about  those  unfortunate  Russian 
students?  You  remember  that  our  Medical 
Times  friend  said  that  Professor  von  Bunge 
declared  that  12  per  cent,  of  the  smokers 
among-  them  were  suffering  from  diseases  of 
the  alimentary  canal,  as  opposed  to  10  per 
cent,  of  the  non-smokers.  Well,  they  were 
not.  The  plain  truth  is  that  the  Medical 
Times  man  misquoted  the  original  report,  for 
that  report  gives  10.69  per  cent,  of  the  smokers 
and  9.92  of  the  non-smokers,  and  Mendelson, 
the  physiologist  who  made  the  examination, 
declared  the  difference  to  be  too  small  to  be 
of  any  value. 

Tobacco  blindness?  By  that  term  the  critic 
evidently  refers,  though  incorrectly,  to  a  form 
of  amblyopia,  and  that  is  not,  in  spite  of  his 
assertion,  a  "permanent"  affection.  It  is  cur- 

*The  Practitioner,  London,  1905.    Vol.  75.     Page  56. 


170  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

able  with  care  and  regimen.  In  his  article  on 
the  "Effect  of  Tobacco  on  the  Eyes,"  Dr.  Lyle 
of  London  says :  "If  the  cases  are  recognized 
early,  and  treatment  is  commenced  at  once 
and  properly  continued,  recovery  may  be  com- 
plete." 

That  entire  passage  in  which  the  critic  com- 
piles his  list  of  tobacco  ills  is  full  of  blunders. 
He  says  that  "cancer  of  the  lips,  and  of  the 
tongue,  and  of  the  throat"  are  diseases  "al- 
most wholly  confined  to  smokers,"  whereas 
medical  science  has  not  as  yet  found  the  cause 
of  cancer  and  knows  only  that  its  most  fre- 
quent victims  belong  to  the  sex  that  com- 
monly does  not  use  tobacco. 

Similarly  loose  and  misleading  are  the  as- 
sertions about  tobacco's  relation  to  diseases  of 
the  heart  and  to  albumen  in  the  urine.  The 
alleged  connection  between  tobacco  and  dis- 
eases of  the  arteries  is  discussed  in  another 
chapter  on  the  comparative  effects  of  ciga- 
rettes and  other  forms  of  smoking.  It  has 
been  found  impossible  to  detect,  in  these 
cases,  the  effect  of  tobacco  from  other  possible 
causes  such  as  hard  work,  strain  of  various 
kinds,  obesity,  alcoholism  and  syphilis.  As 
for  the  practical  share  that  tobaccb  may  bear 
in  arterial  disease,  that  is  very  well  described 
by  Dr.  Turney  in  a  paper  read  before  the  Lon- 
don Medical  Society  and  published  in  the 
Medical  Magazine  in  1913,  as  follows: 

Pure  tobacco  poisoning  is  a  very  rare  thing.  Near- 
ly always  you  will  have  to  disentangle  the  tobacco 
element  from  the  age  factor,  the  temperament  factor, 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO     171 

and  so  forth,  and  if  you  are  going  to  see  these  in  their 
proper  perspective  you  will  stand  in  need  of  all  the 
knowledge  and  common-sense  you  possess.* 

There  you  have  the  established  view.  And 
you  get  it  again  in  Professor  Kunkel's  Toxi- 
kologie  (p.  687),  where  that  famous  author 
flatly  declares:  "Cases  of  tobacco  intoxica- 
tion are  rare." 

And  now  for  the  matter  of  the  carbon  mon- 
oxide, which  has,  for  the  lay  ear,  a  decidedly 
terrible  sound.  Remember  that  our  friend  in 
the  Medical  Times  said  that  "four-tenths  of 
one  per  cent,  has  destroyed  human  life." 

Has  it?     Professor  Kunkel  on  page  326  of 
his  famous  book  says :     "A  smoker  may  pro- 
xiuce  in  an  hour  half  a  liter  of  car- 
bon  monoxide.    This  is  too  small  r 

a  quantity  to  affect  the  health  ex-  Carbon 

cept  in  rooms  ill-ventilated  in  ™M    i 

which  many  are  smoking."  In 
other  words,  carbon  monoxide  can  have  ill 
effects  only  when  the  supply  of  oxygen  in  the 
air  is  diminished  to  an  extremely  low  point. 
In  the  ordinarily  ventilated  room  there  would 
be  little  or  no  effect. 

Every  now  and  then,  however,  the  lay  press 
brings  up  this  subject  of  carbon  monoxide  in 
cigarette  smoke.  Thus  in  the  New  York 
Times  for  November  27th,  1914,  a  writer  tells 
us  that  carbon  monoxide  enters  the  lungs  and 
prevents  the  blood  from  coagulating,  whereas, 
a  little  farther  on,  he  says  that  it  liquefies  and 
dissolves  clots  when  formed  and  is  for  that 


*Msdical  Magazine,  Vol.  22.     Page  549. 


172  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

reason  employed  in  embalming.  Why,  in  any 
case,  should  it  be  harmful  to  prevent  blood 
from  coagulating?  Clotted  blood  would  soon 
stop  the  circulation  and  produce  death.  Yet 
letters  to  the  same  effect,  and  with  the  same 
mutually  contradictory  statements,  have  re- 
cently been  published  broadcast  throughout 
the  newspapers  of  England  and  the  United 
States. 

The  true  action  of  this  gas  on  the  human 
blood  is  stated  clearly  by  the  editor  of  Tay- 
lor's Medical  Jurisprudence.  Says  he:  "Car- 
bon monoxide  forms  a  stable  combination 
with  haemoglobin  which  cannot  easily  be 
broken  up  by  physiological  processes  in  the 
lungs";  and  "beyond  the  bright  red  color  of 
the  blood  there  are  no  postmortem  appear- 
ances either  suggestive  or  indicative  of  car- 
bon monoxide  poisoning."*  The  chemical 
change  mentioned  here  is  too  delicate  to  be 
detected  save  by  the  spectroscope,  since  other 
substances  also  produce  a  "bright  red  color  of 
the  blood";  but  the  carbon  monoxide  that  is 
found  in  tobacco  smoke,  according  to  the 
authority  Schmiedl,  is  either  not  poisonous,  or 
else  exists  there  in  such  a  small  proportion 
that  it  cannot  be  considered  as  having  any 
intoxicating  action  upon  man. 

The  other  authorities  who  could  be  quoted 
are  plentiful;  there  is  Boveri  (Gazzetta  degli 
Ospedali,  1905,  No.  64);  Olendorf  (Ther. 
Monatshefte,  1909,  No.  6) ;  Trillat  (Comptes 
rend.  soc.  de  biologic,  Vol.  57,  p.  469) ;  Vavar- 

*Taylor's  Medical  Jurisprudence.    Sixth  Edition.    Page  534. 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO     173 

ger  (Wiener  klin.  Wochenschrift,  1906,  No. 
21);  Vohl  and  Eulenburg  (Vierteljahrschrift 
f.  ger.  Med.,  1878,  14);  Abeles  and  Pashkis 
(Archiv  /.  Hyg.,  1892,  p.  209).  The  evidence 
against  this  pure  assumption  of  the  influence 
of  carbon  monoxide  on  the  smoker  is  over- 
whelming. It  is  a  view  that  has  been  dropped 
by  all  of  the  competent  writers. 

Enough,  then,  of  the  critic  of  the  Medical 
Times. 

There  is,  however,  another  myth  about  the 
cigarette  that  should  be  laid  aside.  This  is 
the  superstition  about  furfural  in  T 

the  tobacco  smoke.   The  best  au-     c  .. 

thority  on  the  composition  of  *«P*r**tion 
smoke  is  Kissling,  but  he  fails  to  _,  f  ou . 
mention  furfural  (Zeitschrift  f. 
angew.  Chemie,  1905,  Vol.  18).  Furfural  is  a 
very  volatile  substance  and  quite  unlikely  to 
be  of  any  effect,  irritating  though  It  is  in  its 
pure  state.  Indeed,  of  its  action  in  tobacco 
smoke  there  has  been  no  serious  discussion, 
and  Dr.  Turney  says  in  the  Medical  Maga- 
zine, "The  evidence  upon  which  this  theory  is 
based  [/.  e.,  the  theory  of  the  evil  effects  of  fur- 
fural in  tobacco  smoke]  is  of  the  slenderest 
description." 

One  more  of  the  supposed  cases  against 
the  cigarette  and  I  have  done  with  this  phase 
of  the  subject.  Recently — to  be  exact,  in  its 
issue  of  January  30,  1915 — there  was  pub- 
lished in  an  American  weekly  scientific  jour- 
nal an  article  on  "The  Detoxication  of  To- 
bacco." The  name  of  the  periodical  we  with- 


174  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

hold  from  mention  because  it  is  a  journal 
generally  well  edited  and  ably  informed'.  One 
may  be  sure  that  any  misinformation  which  it 
contains  is  rare  and  unintentionally  placed 
there.  Nevertheless,  the  statements  made  in 
the  article  in  question  were,  because  of  the 
standing  of  the  publication  in  which  they 
were  printed,  of  a  character  that  demands 
their  consideration  in  this  book.  The  writer 
discussed  his  subject  thus: 

Innumerable  attempts  have  been  made  to  protect 
smokers  from  the  harmful  effects  of  nicotine.  So 
far,  however,  this  object  has  not  been  achieved  with- 
out at  the  same  time  depriving  the  tobacco  of  its 
aroma  and  taste.  Recently  Ambialet,  a  French  phy- 
sician, read  a  paper  before  the  Medical  Society  of  the 
Department  of  the  Rhone  on  one  of  these  attempts. 
His  plan  is  to  do  away  with  the  defects  of  other  reme- 
dies, and  it  deserves  publication  because  of  its  sim- 
plicity. Dr.  Ambialet  has  found  that  if  the  ordinary 
coltsfoot  or  butterbur,  which  is  very  common  in  the 
countryside,  is  mixed  with  tobacco  the  harmful  effects 
of  the  latter  are  completely  eliminated.  He  has  him- 
self smoked  daily  some  forty  cigarettes  made  of  this 
mixture  without  feeling  the  slightest  effect  from  the 
nicotine.  At  any  rate  the  remedy  may  be  worth  a 
trial,  coltsfoot  leaves  being  perfectly  harmless  and 
cheap.v 

Dr.  Ambialet  claims  that  tobacco  mixed  with  colts- 
foot leaves  retains  its  full  aroma  and  taste,  the  only 
perceptible  change,  if  any,  being  an  additional  flavor 
like  that  of  Turkish  tobacco.  This  added  flavor 
should  render  the  mixture  very  acceptable  to  most 
smokers. 

This  is  all  very  well,  but  it  is  not  the  whole 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO     175 

truth.      A   glance   at  the  original  paper   in 
the  Marseille  Medical,  of  1914,  ' 

shows  several  gross  errors 
in  the  American  journal's  ac-  Q  ,  .as  a 
count,  not  to  mention  much  that  £  *>u°?trtute 
that  periodical  left  unreported.  for  Tobacco 
For  example,  at  the  meeting  at  which  Dr. 
Ambialet  read  his  paper,  that  reading,  as  is 
usual  on  such  occasions,  was  followed  by  a 
discussion,  in  the  course  of  which  Dr.  Pon- 
thieu,  one  of  the  members  of  the  Medical  So- 
ciety of  the  Department  of  the  Rhone,  aptly 
remarked  that  it  would  first  be  "necessary  to 
be  certain  that  tussilago  [coltsfoot]  contained 
no  alkaloid."  To  this  Dr.  Ambialet  replied: 
"I  have  smoked  thirty  cigarettes  [not  some 
forty,  as  reported  in  the  American  journal] 
daily  without  feeling  any  malaise." 

That  is  no  mere  detail,  nor  are  the  following 
facts  mere  details.  After  saying  that  the 
flowers  of  coltsfoot  were  used  to  make  his 
cigarettes,  and  that  the  stamens,  when  burnt, 
gave  off  an  aroma  "sensibly  like  Oriental  to- 
bacco," Dr.  Ambialet  went  on  to  remark : 

"After  having  made  a  prolonged  use  of 
cigarettes  made  with  these  stamens,  I  think 
I  am  justified  in  pointing  out  the  advantages 
which  smokers  might  derive  from  these  flow- 
ers in  case  they  wished  to  diminish  the  action 
of  tobacco  on  their  own  systems  or  suppress  it 
entirely."* 

Clearly,  Dr.  Ambialet's  intent  was  to  use 
coltsfoot  as  an  antidote  for  tobacco.  He  did 


^Marseille  Medical,  1914.     Page  353. 


176  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

not  mean  that  the  flowers  "detoxicate"  tobac- 
co, but  that  they  detoxicate  the  system  of  the 
smoker.  If  indeed  they  gave,  when  mixed 
with  tobacco,  an  aroma  that  is  Oriental,  there 
is  nothing  new  in  that.  In  fact,  the  leaves  of 
the  coltsfoot,  which  the  French  also  call  pas 
d'ane,  or  ass's  foot,  were  smoked  by  the  an- 
cients, as  Pliny  informs  us,  and  in  Germany 
they  have  long  been  used  as  a  substitute  for 
tobacco. 

Our  American  commentator  is  scientifically 
unwarranted  in  his  statement  that  when  colts- 
foot is  mixed  with  tobacco  "the  harmful  ef- 
fects of  the  latter  are  completely  eliminated." 
Dr.  Ambialet's  individual  experience  is  soli- 
tary ;  it  is  unsupported  by  chemists  and  physi- 
ologists. Investigation  has  shown,  as  will  be 
found  recorded  in  another  chapter  of  this 
book,  that  the  smoking  of  leaves  and  herbs  of 
various  kinds  have  effects  similar  to  those  of 
tobacco.  The  agreeable  effects  that  Dr.  Am- 
bialet  experienced  when  he  smoked  his  colts- 
foot flowers  show  only  that  they  suited  his 
especial  case,  or  especial  taste,  and  the  good 
French  doctor  ingenuously  argues  from  the 
particular  to  the  general  and  assumes  that 
what  suits  one  man  must  suit  all  mankind. 

This  does  not  reflect  on  the  society  before 
which  he  read  his  paper.  From  the  printed 
proceedings  of  that  society  it  is  evident  that 
Dr.  Ambialet's  statements  left  his  hearers  un- 
convinced. In  the  printed  report  there  is  given 
a  warning  by  Dr.  Ponthieu  to  the  effect  that 
there  may  be  an  alkaloid — in  other  words,  a 
substance  chemically  like  nicotine — in  the 


POPULAR  ERRORS' ABOUT  TOBACCO     177 

leaves  and  flowers  of  the  coltsfoot.  This  very 
point  was,  in  fact,  carefully  investigated  with 
a  result  that  will  serve  as  a  moral  for  nearly  all 
these  tobacco  stories,  and  for  quite  all  the 
stories  of  substitutes  for  tobacco. 

Consider  again  the  article  in  the  American 
periodical.  There  the  writer  says  of  Dr.  Am- 
bialet  that  "he  has  himself  smoked  daily  some 
forty  cigarettes  of  this  mixture" — the  "mix- 
ture" being  tobacco  and  "the  ordinary  colts- 
foot." The  writer  is  evidently  not  aware  that 
the  flowers,  leaves  and  root  of  coltsfoot  have 
varying  effects  and  in  many  respects  a  differ- 
ent composition — a  fact  that  the  slightest 
knowledge  of  botany  should  have  suggested. 
Yet  the  doctor  was  himself  aware  of  the  dis- 
tinction and  was  careful  to  say: 

"People  who  have  heart  disease,  or  a  ten- 
dency to  it,  and  all  who  have  troubles  of  the 
organs  of  breathing  as  well  as  symptoms  of 
tobacco  intoxication,  to  whom  tobacco  is 
therefore  forbidden,  should  certainly  prefer 
these  cigarettes  made  of  the  stamens  of  colts- 
foot to  cigarettes  of  eucalyptus  or  of  tobacco 
deprived  of  its  nicotine." 

Now,  the  real  composition  of  coltsfoot  has 
become  better  known  since  the  days  when  the 
ancients  smoked  it,  and  Dr.  Ambialet  should 
have  been  aware  of  it.  Bondurant  first  ana- 
lyzed it  in  1887,  and  his  report  of  that  analysis 
will  be  found  in  the  American  Journal  of  Phar- 
macy, 1887,  p.  340.  He  found  a  number  of 
medicinal  substances  and  a  bitter  principle 
that  gave  the  reactions  of  a  glucoside.  More 
lately  the  plant  has  been  better  studied.  It 


178  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

contains  tannin,  a  volatile  oil,  a  gelatinous 
substance,  pectin,  and  a  powerful  irritant  poi- 
son, saponin.  It  is  possible  that  the  stamens 
do  not  contain  these  poisons  in  appreciable 
amount,  but  the  powers  of  the  leaves  were  well 
known  to  the  Greek  writers  Hippocrates  and 
Dioscorides,  who  describe  the  effects  of  decoc- 
tions from  them  in  throat  troubles;  and  it  is 
certain  that  coltsfoot  is  not  quite  a  harmless 
substitute  for  tobacco. 

So  all  these  attacks  upon  tobacco  pass,  upon 
examination,  into  the  limbo  provided  for  their 
-      ...  predecessors.      Never  was  truer 

™e  *f£  word  written  than  this:  that  the 
Worse  Off  criticism  of  tobacco  is  "an  ad- 
ihan  Uur  mirable  illustration  of  the  effect 
which  thought,  constantly  di- 
rected in  a  wrong  channel,  may  have  in  warp- 
ing the  judgment/'  That  is  the  opinion  of 
F.  W.  Fairholt,  F.S.A.,  whose  monumental 
volume,  Tobacco:  its  History  and  Associa- 
tions has  become  a  standard.  I  shall  give  two 
pertinent  quotations  from  that  work: 

"Who  shall  decide  when  doctors  disagree?"  has 
been  asked  in  many  similar  cases :  in  this  one  doctors 
have  disagreed  to  an  unexampled  extent.  *  *  * 
Some  opponents  find  every  disease  under  the  sun 
originating  in  tobacco*  smoke.  Others  declare  as 
loudly  in  its  favor,  and  quote  quite  as  many  instances 
of  good  resulting  from  the  practice.  Truth,  as  usual, 
seems  to  lie  between,  undiscovered  by  the  belliger- 
ents, but  perfectly  well  known  to  "the  honest  smoker" 
who  wonders  from  amid  his  peaceful  cloud  what  all 
the  turmoil  means.  *  *  *  Alas !  gentlemen  fighters, 
know  you  not  that  the  herb  first  gained  its  reputation 
for  its  extremely  sanatory  uses?  And  that  doctors 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO     179 

themselves  first  affirmed  it  to  be  "the  most  sovereign 
and  precious  weed  that  ever  the  earth  tendered  to  the 
use  of  man?" 

There  is  a  narrowness  of  spirit  among  the  opposi- 
tionists which  takes  a  persecuting  feature,  and  in- 
duces dislike  and  doubt  of  their  tenets.* 

And  thus  he  ends  his  chapter  on  the  contro- 
versies over  tobacco's  merits : 

Some  physicians  have  been  pleased  to  ascribe  per- 
nicious effects  to  the  use  of  tobacco,  upon  about  as 
good  evidence  as  a  gipsy  tells  fortunes  by  counting 
the  furrows  of  the  palm  of  a  country  girl's  hand.  A 
correspondent  favors  us  with  an  extract  from  a  paper 
read  before  the  British  Association  at  Southampton, 
in  which  a  truly  horrid  train  of  evils  is  traced  to  the 
continuous  use  of  this  poisonous  substance.  The 
poison,  it  would  seem  "pervades  the  digestive  and  res- 
piratory system,  the  circulating  system  and  nervous 
system,  diminishing  the  moral  and  intellectual  pow- 
ers." Instead  of  all  this  detail,  and  much  more  of  the 
same  sort,  why  did  not  the  learned  essayist  say  at 
once  that  the  baneful  drug  pervaded  soul  and  body? 
With  "death  in  the  pot"  by  one  set  of  philosophers, 
and  "death  in  the  pipe"  by  another,  the  wonder  only 
is  how  we  came  to  live  longer  than  our  ancestors  of 
the  reign  of  King  Henry  the  Eighth,  who  never  saw 
and  never  heard  of  a  tobacco  plant.  Three  hundred 
years  ago  a  few  American  savages  only  consumed  to- 
bacco, and  now  it  is  consumed  by  all  mankind,  being 
the  only  commodity  common  to  the  consumption  of 
all  races  and  all  social  conditions.  Are  our  lives 
shorter,  our  morals  worse,  or  our  intellects  weaker, 
that  for  the  better  part  of  three  centuries  "the  poison- 
ous drug,"  according  to  this  hypothesis,  has  been  cir- 
culating through  the  veins  of  ourselves  and  our  fore- 
fathers? 


*Tobacco:  its  History  and  Associations.     Page  7. 


180  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Men  of  every  race  and  of  every  climate  have  been 
using  stimulants  of  one  sort  or  another  from  the  days 
of  Noah,  and  probably  will  continue  to  do  so  for  the 
next  four  thousand  years  in  spite  of  chair  or  pulpit. 
The  question  to  decide  is  which  stimulant  is  most  in- 
nocuous. *  *  *  We  are  not  to  be  frightened  out 
of  our  wits  by  Dr.  Laycock's  awful  array  of  terrors, 
attested  though  they  be  "by  experiments  demonstrat- 
ing the  physiological  action  of  the  drug  on  animals," 
that  is,  experiments  to  show  that  what  may  be  injuri- 
ous to  a  dog  that  dies  of  old  age  at  sixteen,  and  to  a 
rabbit  which  breeds  seven  times  a  year,  and  hardly 
lives  five,  must  be  equally  so  to  a  creature  that  lives 
seventy  or  eighty  years,  and  whose  ingenuity  has  al- 
tered the  very  face  of  the  planet  he  dwells  on.* 

That,  I  take  it,  will  be  the  verdict  of  most 
men.  Surely  the  typical  examples  of  popular 
fallacies  that  have  been  cited  in  this  chapter, 
and  the  elaborate  arguments  against  tobacco 
that  have  been  reproduced  and  answered, 
leave  the  impression  that  the  writers  who  at- 
tack tobacco  in  general  and  the  cigarette  in 
particular  have  not  examined  the  authorities 
and  are  not  sustained  by  them.  That  ex- 
tremely complicated  thing,  tobacco  debate, 
has  about  it  little  that  is  new.  The  main  argu- 
ments were  put  forward  and  exploded  long 
ago,  and  to  repeat  them  now,  without  know- 
ing the  results  of  modern  scientific  investiga- 
tion, is  to  engage  in  a  stereotyped  routine  that 
is  daily  growing  less  and  less  effective. 

Most  of  the  opponents  of  cigarettes  are 
coffee  drinkers  or  tea  drinkers,  yet  there  is  no 
argument  against  tobacco  that  cannot  be 

*  Tobacco:  its  History  and  Associations.     Page  10. 


POPULAR  ERRORS  ABOUT  TOBACCO    181 

paralleled  by  an  argument  against  coffee  or 
tea.  The  fact  is  that  in  all  these  criticisms 
from  men  of  one  sort  of  taste,  upon  men  of  an- 
other sort,  there  is  a  decided  tendency  to  make 
a  familiar  and  rapidly  extending  custom  take 
on  a  fictitious  resemblance  to  really  bad 
habits,  until  tea  and  coffee  are  given  a  mask 
resembling  the  hideous  face  of  opium,  and  vio- 
lent investigators  endeavor  to  find  a  connec- 
tion between  the  taste  for  tobacco  and  that  for 
alcohol. 

It  is  this  absurd  sort  of  thing  that  I  have 
dealt  with  in  the  chapter  now  closing  and 
that  it  were  well  now  to  forgive  and  forget. 
For  the  rest,  since  the  vast  majority  of  civil- 
ized men  now  use  tea,  coffee  and  tobacco,  it 
must  certainly  appear  to  this  majority  that 
some  clear  ground  of  necessity,  or  of  obvious 
advantage,  should  be  shown  before  such  sim- 
ple, natural  and  well  established  enjoyments 
are  interfered  with  or  curtailed. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  VOICE  AND  SMOKING 

Investigation   Reveals   No   Added   Ingredients   in    Cigarette 

Tobacco — Nearly  All  Great  Singers  Smoke  Cigarettes — 

Science  Favors  the  Cigarette  above  Other  Forms 

of  Using  Tobacco— The  "Tobacco  Heart"  Fallacy. 

TO  ANYBODY  unacquainted  with  the 
vagaries  of  the  anti-cigarette  crusader, 
it  would  seem  that,  having  disposed  of 
the  myths  mentioned  in  the  previous  two 
chapters,  the  last  ghosts  which  it  was  possible 
for  any  mind  to  raise  against  the  cigarette, 
however  zealously  prejudiced,  must  surely 
have  been  laid.  Not  so.  The  enemy  of  ciga- 
rette smoking  is  nothing  if  not  imaginatively 
fertile.,  There  remain  still  other  fallacies  to 
be  controverted,  and,  facile  as  the  task  is,  the 
crusader  has  himself  been  so  active  that  this 
work  must  now  be  performed. 

There  is,  for  instance,  the  oft  repeated 
statement  that  cigarette  smoking  injures  the 
voice.  There  is,  too,  the  once  widespread 
nightmare  of  the  "tobacco  heart."  It  is  with 
these  that  we  come  now  to  deal. 

Writers  in  medical  journals,  and  scientific 
writers  in  general,  have,  I  find,  almost  in- 
variably treated  in  conjunction  the  subjects 
of  the  comparative  effects  of  the  different 
forms  of  using  tobacco  and  the  relation  of  the 
use  of  tobacco  to  the  human  voice.  I  have 
therefore  found  it  most  convenient,  and  per- 
haps most  effective,  to  combine  those  two 
topics  here. 

182 


THE  VOICE  AND  SMOKING  183 

Moreover,  since  these  subjects  raise  ques- 
tions that  are  best  answered  by  authorities,  it 
has  seemed  proper  that  I  should  continue  the 
method  heretofore  pursued  in  this  book,  when 
any  matter  of  controversy  was  touched  upon, 
and  devote  myself  not  to  the  expression  of 
personal  opinion,  nor  even  to  the  results  of 
personal  experience,  but  almost  entirely  to 
quotations  from  the  writings  of  scientists  and 
experts  that  have  devoted  many  years  to  the 
study  of  the  problems  involved.  These  ex- 
perts have  been  chosen  without  prejudice,  and 
in  order  to  bring  out  the  main  points  of  the 
argument,  I  shall,  for  the  most  part,  depend 
solely  upon  a  liberal  italicizing  of  the  more 
significant  phrases  in  their  conclusions. 

However,  there  is  one  question  to  be  asked 
and  one  statement  to  be  made. 

In  the  first  place,  any  open-eyed  investiga- 
tor of  the  problems  that  now  confront  us  can- 
not fail  but  be  struck  by  the  fact  that  no  phy- 
sician has  specialized  in  the  treatment  of  the 
alleged  ill-effects  of  tobacco.  Authorities  are 
many,  but  specialist  there  is  none.  Now,  ours 
is  an  age  of  specialization,  and  in  no  profes- 
sion has  it  been  carried  to  such  a  degree  as 
in  medicine.  The  medical  profession  special- 
izes in  nearly  every  known  disease,  but  we 
have  yet  to  hear  of  any  such  physician  as  a 
tobacco  or  nicotine  specialist. 

If  smoking  is  the  danger  that  its  opponents 
attempt  to  prove  it  to  be,  how  does  it  happen 
that  the  medical  profession  has  not  specialized 
on  this  subject? 


184  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Next,  I  want  immediately  to  call  attention 
to  this:  whereas,  among  the  score  or  more  of 
authorities  that  have  written  about  tobacco 
(authorities  on  physiology  as  distinct  from 
those  in  tobacco  troubles)  there  are  a  few 
maintaining  that  the  harmful  effects  result 
from  smoking  when  indulged  in  to  excess, 
there  are  only  three  who  express  the  opinion 
that  these  results  are  more  noticeable  from 
cigarettes  than  from  the  pipe  or  the  cigar. 

Throughout  the  conclusions  of  all  the 
others,  the  sole  point  of  disagreement  is  as  to 
whether  the  pipe  or  the  cigar  should  be  placed 
first  as  productive  of  such  effects  when  ex- 
cessively used.  It  is  agreed,  with  but  those 
three  dissenting  voices,  that,  of  all  forms  in 
which  tobacco  is  used,  the  cigarette,  if  harm- 
ful at  all,  is  the  least  harmful. 

Throughout  the  course  of  this  book  it  has 
thus  far  been  my  endeavor,  whenever  we  come 
to  a  disputed  point,  to  present  first  the  side 
that  is  unfavorable  to  the  cigarette.  I  hasten, 
therefore,  now  to  record  the  utterances  of  the 
trio  of  dissenting  voices  above  referred  to. 

The  Lancet,  of  London, — which  we  have 
readily  admitted  to  be  one  of  the  world's  lead- 
ing medical  journals — is  one  of  these ;  but  The 
Lancet,  in  placing  the  cigarette  first  on  its  list, 
at  the  same  time  proves  that  cigarette  to- 
bacco contains  less  nicotine  than  either  cigar 
or  pipe  tobacco.  In  that  journal's  very  ex- 
haustive analytical  examination  of  English 
and  American  cigarettes,  made  by  a  specially 
appointed  commission,  whose  report  is  dated 
December  9, 1899,  it  was  said: 


THE  VOICE  AND  SMOKING  185 

"It  is  possible  that  cigarette  smoking  in 
particular  is  more  injurious  than  any  other 
form  of  smoking,  but  this,  in  the  majority  of 
instances,  may  be  referred  to  the  method 
rather  than  to  the  materials  of  the  cigarette." 

The  task  of  The  Lancet's  Analytical  Com- 
mission was,  as  we  saw  in  a  previous  chapter, 
to  ascertain  whether  or  not  any  ^  AJJJ 
foundation  could  be  found  for  the  No  A*ded 
persistent  rumors  that  tobacco  /*£*¥«*** 
cigarettes  contained  added  in-  inClsarette 
gredients,  such  as  opium, 
arsenic,  chlorine,  etc.,  and  its  thorough 
chemical  examinations,  to  quote  from  the  re- 
port, "failed  to  elicit  the  slightest  evidence  on 
this  head."  In  every  way,  excepting  in  the 
matter  of  comparison  with  other  forms  of 
smoking,  the  cause  of  the  cigarette  has  been 
helped  and  furthered  by  the  report  of  this 
commission. 

So  much  for  The  Lancet.  The  second  of  the 
three  authorities  who  place  the  cigarette 
ahead  of  the  pipe  or  cigar  in  relative  possible 
ill  effect  is  Dr.  H.  Lambert  Lack,  surgeon  to 
the  throat  department,  and  lecturer  on  dis- 
eases of  the  throat,  in  the  London  Hospital, 
and  surgeon  at  the  Hospital  for  Diseases  of 
the  Throat,  London.  Although  space  here 
forbids  the  reproduction  of  Dr.  Lack's  article 
in  full,  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  he  claims 
that  the  ill-influence  of  over-indulgence  in 
tobacco  cannot  be  denied  altogether,  for  he 
writes : 

"Undue  indulgence  is  strong  tobaccos  may 
be  a  contributory  cause  of  dyspepsia  and  thus 


186  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

react  on  the  throat.  Also  excessive  cigarette 
smoking,  especially  when  the  smoke  is  in- 
haled, and  perhaps,  one  may  add,  when  asso- 
ciated with  excessive  expectoration,  is  liable 
to  cause  a  pharyngeal  catarrh,  more  particu- 
larly in  young  people.'* 

Also  in  fairness,  there  is  another  portion  of 
Dr.  Lack's  article  that  should  be  mentioned. 
This  is  a  section  in  which  he  quotes  other 
authorities  who  claim  that  tobacco  is  among 
the  frequent  causes  of  affections  of  the  throat, 
but  he  says  that  his  own  long  experience  does 
not  agree  with  their  findings,  and  he  goes  on 
to  declare: 

The  mildly  stimulating  effect  of  tobacco  smoke 
upon  the  upper  air  passages  may  sometimes  be 
apparently  beneficial.  Patients  suffering  from  a 
dry  post-nasal  catarrh  or  tracheitis  find  great  re- 
lief from  an  early  morning  cigarette.  The  irrita- 
tion of  the  smoke  probably  excites  a  little  hyper- 
aemia  and  secretion,  ai*d  enables  the  patient  to 
expectorate  more  freely  and  clear  the  air  passages. 
It  is  doubtful  if  harm  can  be  ascribed  to  this.  *  *  * 

To  sum  up,  from  what  has  already  been  said  it 
will  be  seen  that  tobacco  exerts  a  mild  stimulating 
effect  upon  those  parts  of  the  upper  air  passages 
with  which  the  smoke  directly  comes  in  contact. 
When  the  air  passages  are  otherwise  healthy,  these 
effects  are  slight  or  unnoticeable,  and  no  harm, 
results  unless  the  patient  is  of  tender  years  and 
smokes  or  inhales  cigarettes  excessively. 

Elsewhere,  Dr.  Lack  has  been  even  more 
favorable  to  the  cigarette.  The  Practitioner, 
like  The  Lancet,  of  London,  is  one  of  the 
world's  standard  medical  journals,  and,  writ- 


THE  VOICE  AND  SMOKING  187 

ing  in  The  Practitioner  on  "The  Effects  of  To- 
bacco," Dr.  Lack  has  said : 

My  own  experience,  corroborated  by  careful  in- 
quiry amongst  a  large  number  of  singers  and  other 
professional  voice-users,  leads  me  to  believe  that  the 
results  of  tobacco  smoke  on  the  throat  are  greatly 
exaggerated.      Many  singers  with  first-rate  voices 
state  that  smoking  has  little  or  no  effect  upon  their 
throats.    Mario,  the  great  tenor,  smoked  and  in-  I 
haled  cigarettes  constantly.    I  think  it  would  be    , 
safe  to  state  that  moderate  smoking  never  origi-  \ 
nates  any  affection  of  the  throat  worthy  of  the 
name.    At  the  most  it  causes  a  slight  hyperaemia 
of  the  parts  with  which  the  smoke  comes  in  con- 
tact, or  an  insignificant  catarrh. 

In  the  great  majority  of  affections  of  the  upper  air 
passages  which  are  ascribed  to  smoking,  careful  in- 
vestigation will  show  that  other  and  more  potent 
causes  are  at  work  and  that  tobacco  plays  a  minor 
part.  Post-nasal  catarrhs,  which  are  so  commonly 
ascribed  to  excessive  smoking,  will  be  found  much 
more  often  to  depend  upon  some  definite  affections  of 
the  nose,  upon  chronic  dyspepsia,  alcoholism,  etc.  In 
a  patient  at  present  under  my  care  a  long  existing 
post-nasal  catarrh  ascribed  to  cigarette  smoking  has 
been  found  to  depend  upon  a  sinus  suppuration.  An 
apparent  justification  for  blaming  the  tobacco  arose 
from  the  fact  that  the  catarrh  greatly  diminished 
when  smoking  was  stopped.  In  like  manner  a  chronic 
pharyngitis,  a  rawness  or  burning  feeling  in  the 
pharynx,  a  little  irritable  cough  or  slight  huskiness 
of  the  voice  ascribed  to  smoking  will  more  often  be 
found  to  depend  upon  alcoholism  or  dyspepsia.  The 
so-called  "relaxed"  or  "gouty"  throats,  especially  in 
old  people,  are  far  more  often  due  to  champagne  than 
to  cigars.  There  is  no  sufficient  evidence  to 
prove  that  malignant  disease  of  the  throat  is  due 
in  any  way  to  smoking. 


188  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

This  from  a  surgeon  who  is  recognized  in 
the  medical  profession  as  one  of  the  highest 
authorities  in  the  world,  if  not  the  foremost, 
on  diseases  of  the  throat  and  of  the  upper  air 
passages. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  significance  in  Dr. 
Lack's  mention  of  Mario,  who,  as  Owen  Mer- 
edith says,  could 

"Soothe  with  a  tenor  note 
The  souls  in  purgatory" ; 
and  the  fact  that  this  great  tenor  "smoked  and 
inhaled  cigarettes  constantly"  led  me  to  an 
investigation  of  the  attitude  of  other  singers 
toward  cigarettes. 

I  went  about  this  in  no  partisan  spirit.    I 
wanted  only  to  find  the  truth.    The  results, 
however,  have  made  it  seem  to 

jVcQF/V    J\  II  •  •  • 

me  that  if  one  "were  seekmsr  evi- 
Greaf  Sing-      ^ence  t^at  t^e  smoking  of  ciga- 
ers*  TIG  <         rettes    is   not    injurious    to  the 
*8are  voice — indeed  if  he  were  looking 

/     for  evidence  that  the  cigarette  even  is  bene- 
/     ficial  to  the  voice — he  could  find  nothing  more 
conclusive  than  the  fact  that  nearly  all  great 
singers   are   habitual   cigarette   smokers — for 

t  fact  is  precisely  what  I  found. 
Here,  however,  to  give  the  names  of  the 
notable  male  singers  who  are  cigarette  smok- 
ers would  be  like  publishing  nearly  the  entire 
male  personnel  of  the  grand  opera  companies 
of  the  world.  This  is  to  say  nothing  of  the 
celebrated  women  singers,  for  it  is  well  known 
that  many  of  them— Drained  in  the  famous 
music  centers  of  Europe  where  smoking  is 
taken  as  a  matter  of  course — smoke  cigarettes. 


THE  VOIC2  AND  SMOKING  189 

Both  maintain  that  not  only  are  their  voices 
uninjured  by  the  habit,  but  that  they  consider 
smoking  to  be  often  beneficial. 

Let  us  take,  for  example,  the  case  of  Caruso, 
the  most  popular  tenor  of  the  present  day. 
Caruso  smokes  cigarettes  and  has  smoked 
them  for  years.  Is  it  possible  for  a  moment  to 
suppose  that  the  possessor  of  a  voice  which  is 
his  fortune — a  voice  that  earns  for  him  $2,500 
every  time  he  sings  in  public — would  continue 
to  smoke  if  he  thought  that  the  practice  were 
injurious  in  the  slightest  degree  to  that  voice? 
There  is  evidence  that  instead  of  considering 
the  smoking  of  cigarettes  injurious  he  thinks 
that  it  is  beneficial,  for  he  puffs  cigarettes  even 
between  the  acts  of  an  opera,  reappearing  to 
thrill  his  audiences  with  the  marvelous  clear- 
ness and  beauty  of  his  notes. 

Caruso  is  but  following  tradition.    Careful    - 
inquiry  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  in 
New  York  brought  forth  the  information  from 
people  who  have  been  in  close  association     I 
with  the  singers  for  years,  that  there  had  not    /> 
been,  to  their  recollection,  a  male  singing 
artist  of  the  first  rank  in  that  organization    ! 
who  was  not  a  cigarette  smoker  of  greater  or^ 
less  degree. 

I  have  nowhere  found  it  recorded  that  any 
famous  opera  or  concert  vocal  artist  has  ever 
been  incapacitated  by  a  throat  affection  that 
could  be  attributed  to  smoking,  and  most  of     /* 
the  players  in  the  great  orchestras,  as  well  as 
most  of  the  famous  conductors,  are  smokers  of  ... 
either  the  cigar  or  cigarette. 

So  much  for  the  questions  raised  by  The 


190  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Lancet  and  Dr.  Lack.  On  the  other  hand,  not 
a  few  really  ludicrous  statements  have  been 
encountered  during  the  investigation  of  data 
on  this  subject,  and  one  of  the  most  ludicrous 
forms  our  third  adverse  opinion  and  was  at- 
tributed to  a  physician  of  Hartford,  Conn. 
This  was  a  Dr.  T.  D.  Crothers.  In  Education* 
he  was  quoted  at  some  length  as  saying: 

"Cigarette  smoking  is  the  most  dangerous 
form  in  which  tobacco  can  be  used,  because 
combustion  goes  on  so  near  the  mouth  that 
all  products  of  burning  are  drawn  into  the 
mouth  without  change  and  are  absorbed  by 
the  blood  vessels  and  carried  to  the  brain.  In 
the  pipe  and  cigars  many  of  th6  products  from 
burning  are  condensed  in  the  stem  of  the  pipe 
and  body  of  the  cigar  and  never  touch  the 
mouth.  In  the  cigarette  these  poisonous  pro- 
ducts, small  in  amount,  are  constantly  taken 
into  the  blood  vessels  of  the  mouth  and  affect 
the  senses." 

Of  course,  nothing  could  be  more  erroneous 
than  these  statements,  and,  of  course,  their  ex- 
act opposite  has  long  since  been  fully  estab- 
lished by  scientific  observation  and  experi- 
ment. So  much,  the  remembering  reader  will 
recall,  has  already  been  demonstrated.! 

In  this  connection  it  is  worth  while  here  to 
quote  at  some  length  from  an  excellent  paper 
on  "Cigarettes— Effects  Compared,"  by  Fred- 
erick Sohon,  M.  D.,  of  Washington,  which 

*Vol.  XXIX,  p.  301. 

fSee  the  citation  of  the  studies  of  Lehmann  and  Haber- 
mann  in  Chapter  X  of  this  book. 


THE  VOICE  AND  SMOKING  191 

was  read  at  a  meeting  of  the  Medical  and 
Surgical  Society  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
and  later  published  in  The  Virginia  Medical 
Semi-Monthly.  After  discussing  the  cigar 
and  pipe  from  several  angles,  Dr.  Sohon  pro- 
ceeds: 

Locally,  the  cigarette  is  less  harmful  to  the 
smoker.  The  tough,  dry,  glazed,  scabby  pharynx 
of  the  smoker  of  a  strong  pipe,  or  the  congested,  fol- 
licular  membranes,  with  engorged  veins  and  hyper- 
trophic  papillae  of  the  cigar  smoker,  is  not  found  in 
the  user  of  the  cigarette. 

Tobacco  smoke  is  an  irritant  by  virtue  of  its  pecu- 
liar vapors,  as  well  as  the  smoke  itself.  The  hot 
fog  of  a  pipe  or  the  heavy  cloud  from  a  cigar 
work  far  more  decided  textural  changes  than  the 
thin  and  cool  haze  of  a  cigarette. 

The  cigarette  smoker's  throat  is  moist;  he 
does  not  hawk  nor  scratch,  and  if  any  symptoms 
are  shown  they  are  in  the  other  direction  and  he  will 
usually  have  to  expel  an  overproduction  of  thin,  non- 
viscid  mucus,  which  is  apt  to  settle  in  the  larynx. 
While  the  damage  is  so  slight  texturally  as  not  to 
affect  the  gross  appearance  of  the  membrane,  the 
area  of  action  is  more  extended,  owing  to  the  almost 
universal  practice  of  inhaling  the  smoke.  The  cigar, 
as  well  as  the  cigarette,  affects  the  nose,  the  former 
being  more  injurious,  but  the  cigar  smoke  is  hardly 
ever  drawn  into  the  bronchi,  because  it  is  so  much 
denser,  hotter,  and  more  irritating  than  the  cigarette 
smoke  that  it  cannot  be  done  with  impunity. 

It  is  popularly  supposed  that  the  smoke  is  drawn 
into  the  "lungs/*  which,  to  the  lay  mind,  is  an  un- 
known organ  in  structure  and  action.  As  the  bodily 
movement  of  inspired  air  ceases  before  the  bron- 
chioles are  reached,  and  the  process  completed  by 
gaseous  diffusion,  the  smoke  inhaled  cannot  reach,  in 


192  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

the  short  inhale,  the  really  delicate  structures,  and 
what  is  deposited  is  (unless  absorbed,  which  must 
be  to  a  minute  degree,  when  we  consider  that  it  takes 
a  lifetime  of  city  smoke  and  dust  to  pigment  the  pul- 
monary lymphatics),  carried  outward,  and  not  in- 
ward, by  the  ciliary  action. 

Only  in  cases  where  the  consumption  is  inordi- 
nately large  does  inhaling  create  a  cough.  Protracted 
over-indulgence  can  even  create  a  purulent  bronchial 
catarrh.  Cigars  or  pipe  do  not  do  this,  because  they 
are  not  inhaled;  but  neither  can  the  cigarette  fiend 
so  far  insure  himself  as  to  entice  an  epithelioma.  I 
am  aware  that  this  is  rather  a  "Roland  for  an  Oliver" 
argument,  but  it  is  given  intentionally  to  give  the 
abused  cigarette  a  chance  to  divide  its  claims  to 
popular  disapproval.  I  believe  that  a  census  of 
smoking  singers  would  show  a  large  preponder- 
ance of  cigarette  users,  and  certainly  one  can 
sing  with  a  clear  tone  after  using  a  cigarette,  but 
not  after  a  cigar. 

My  statement  as  to  the  comparative  harmless- 
ness  of  the  local  action  of  cigarette  smoke,  when 
used  in  moderation,  will  possibly  be  contradicted, 
but  they  are  my  views  as  the  result  of  very  many 
throat  and  nose  examinations.  *  *  * 

It  seems  to  me  one  is  better  able  to  judge  his  dose 
by  the  cigarette.  He  feels  its  action  at  once,  when 
he  wishes  it,  it  is  gone  quickly,  and  let  alone  when 
not  wanted;  while  from  the  cigar,  he  Seels  the  full 
and  deep  action  for  hours.  Many  cannot  smoke  a 
cigar,  being  easily  affected  by  tobacco,  without  be- 
coming irritable,  nervous,  depressed,  and  shaky  with 
anorexia  and  insomnia.  I  am  one  of  these;  so  to 
continue  the  idle  habit,  as  you  do  with  your  cigars, 
I  use  the  milder  form  of  the  cigarette. 

If  we  allow  the  fact  that  one  intends  to  smoke,  in 
.what  is  the  cigarette  more  harmful  than  the  cigar? 
I  see  no  other  objection  than  the  greater  liability  to 


THE  VOICE  AND  SMOKING  193 

the  formation  of  a  habit  of  over-indulgence  due  to 
the  greater  satisfaction  from  inhaling  and  the  more 
frequent  use  permitted  on  account  of  smaller  sepa- 
rate doses.  But  are  we  not  too  apt  to  say  that  one 
has  the  cigarette  habit  simply  because  his  indulgence 
is  more  noticeable  on  account  of  the  frequency  of 
smoking,  and  not  on  account  of  the  amount  of  physi- 
ological perturbation?  It  is  altogether  a  question  of 
the  personal  equation.  One  may  easily  smoke  a 
cigarette  every  hour,  and  still  not  inflict  as  much 
damage  as  another  will  do  with  his  two  or  three 
cigars  a  day. 

Were  it  not  for  the  inhaling,  cigarette  smok- 
ing would  be  less  harmful  than  the  eating  of  pie; 
but  it  is  needless  to  consider  it  from  this  point, 
for  all  cigarette  smokers  do  inhale  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  and  derive  their  main  satisfaction  from  so 
doing. 

Dr.  Sohon  then  proceeds  to  give  a  scientific 
explanation  of  the  stage  one  reaches  when  he 
may  fairly  be  said  to  be  addicted  to  the  ciga- 
rette-habit, and  after  decrying  excessive  in- 
dulgence, the  Doctor  concludes  his  paper  by 
saying:  "He  who  would  dance  must  pay  for 
his  fiddling  proportionate  to  his  pleasure.  If 
he  knows  enough  and  is  careful  enough  not  to 
pay  too  dearly,  the  user  of  cigarettes  derives 
as  much  satisfaction  from  his  smoke  with  less 
harm  than  he  who  smokes  cigars.'9 

Of  the  same  mind  as  Dr.  Sohon  was  the  late 
Lord  Goschen,  who,  as  nobody  will  deny,  was 
exceedingly  wise  in  his  generation.  He  saw 
what,  indeed,  every  intelligent  person  should 
today  clearly  recognize:  that  is,  that  the  al- 
leged harmful  effects  of  smoking  depend  to  a 
great  extent  upon  the  individual  affected. 


194  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Lord  Goschen  said  in  effect  that  the  ciga- 
rette was  a  useful  innovation;  that  it  lessened 
the  consumption  of  wine;  and  that  it  affected 
the  health  less  than  the  nicotine-laden  chan- 
nels of  the  pipe  and  the  ever  stronger  and 
stronger  stump  of  the  cigar.  Like  him,  Hare 
has  placed  the  cigarette  below  the  cigar  and 
pipe  in  power,  giving  the  order,  from  mild  to 
strong  effects,  as  chewing,  cigarette  smoking, 
cigar  smoking,  pipe  smoking.* 

It  was,  in  short,  a  thoroughly  modern  opin- 
ion that  Lord  Goschen  expressed  when  he  as- 
serted : 

"In  all  that  has  been  said,  we  agree  to  the 
principle  that  the  cigarette  is  to-day  the  man- 
ner of  smoking  that  exposes  the 
Science  smoker  least  to  the  hurtful  ef- 

F<*vors  fects  of  which  he  may  be  the 

*  f  victim — effects   peculiar   to   to- 

Cl*a]  bacco."     Indeed,   there   is  only 

one  objection  that  the  most  recent  authorities 
make  to  the  classification  laid  down  by  Hare : 
they  hold  that  chewing  is  the  least  desirable 
form  for  the  use  of  tobacco.  In  all  other  re- 
spects they  hold  as  strictly  just  the  order 
above  quoted  and  they  maintain  that  it  gives, 
therefore,  a  clear  idea  as  to  where  the  power 
of  the  smoke  begins  and  where  that  power 
ceases. 

The  relative  effect  of  the  cigarette,  cigar 
and  pipe  as  Sir  Lauder  Brunton,  a  very  dis- 
tinguished English  authority,  has  shown,  de- 

*Use  of  Tobacco,  p.  81. 


THE  VOICE  AND  SMOKING  195 

pends  upon  the  amount  of  free  oxygen  ad- 
mitted to  the  combustion  of  tobacco  in  the 
three  forms  of  smoking.  That  is  to  say  that  a 
pipe,  in  which  the  tobacco  is  inclosed  in  the 
bowl,  allows  less  oxygen  to  have  access, 
while  a  cigar,  loosely  rolled,  and  a  loosely 
rolled  cigarette,  allow  more. 

The  "seasoned"  pipe,  and  the  cigar  half 
burnt  and  moistened  by  saliva,  become  strong; 
while  the  cigarette,  if  held  lightly  between  the 
lips  and  smoked  slowly,  is  not  only  the  mild- 
est of  all,  but  admits  less  smoke  into  the 
mouth.  The  main  stream  of  smoke,  the 
"hauptstrom"  of  Lehman's  and  other  experi- 
ments, does  not  enter  the  mouth  except  to  a 
very  slight  degree  and  is  therefore  absorbed 
only  in  comparatively  small  part.  During  the 
past  few  years,  the  very  highest  authorities 
have,  by  abundant  tests,  confirmed  every  one 
of  these  observations. 

If,  however,  it  does  not  enter  the  mouth, 
what  does  become  of  the  "hauptstrom,"  the 
main  stream  of  smoke?  And  what  is  its  effect 
on  the  smoker? 

Certainly  it  is  not  carried  to  the  brain  in 
the  manner  described  by  Dr.  Crothers  of 
whom  we  made  mention  a  little  while  since. 
He  says:  "In  the  cigarette  these  poisonous 
products,  small  in  amount,  are  constantly 
taken  into  the  blood-vessels  of  the  mouth  and 
affect  the  senses."  From  this  remarkable  sen- 
tence, one  would  suppose  that  the  senses  are 
affected  by  way  of  the  blood-vessels,  and  that 
there  were  many  poisonous  substances  in  the 
smoke. 


196  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

The  truth  has  been  stated  quite  clearly  and 
quite  crushingly  by  Dr.  J.  S.  Gilfillan  in  the 
St.  Paul  Medical  Journal:*  "Recent  investi- 
gations seem  to  show,"  says  Dr.  Gilfillan,  "that 
nicotine  is  the  only  constituent  of  tobacco 
present  in  sufficient  quantities  in  the  smoke  to 
produce  general  effects." 

This  statement  is  both  candid  and  accurate, 
and  is  therefore  worthy  of  consideration.  It 
will  be  noted  that  Dr.  Gilfillan  speaks  of  gen- 
eral effects,  for  every  physician  with  scientific 
knowledge  is  aware  that  the  physiological  ef- 
fects of  smoking  are  exerted  chiefly  on  the 
blood  pressure  and  caliber  of  the  arteries, 
This  has  been  demonstrated  by  the  experi- 
ments of  John,  who  says  that  the  diastolic 
pressure  is  raised  and  the  arteries  contracted 
by  smoking. t 

On  this  account,  Pawinski  believed  that 
smoking  produced  arterio-sclerosis — harden- 
ing and  thickening  of  the  arteries.  On  the 
other  hand,  Schmiedl,  in  even  more  elaborate 
experiments,  was  unable  to  prove  a  necessary 
connection.  He  says  "tobacco  does  not  neces- 
sarily produce  arterio-sclerosis.  On  what  fac- 
tor arterio-sclerosis  depends  is  as  yet  un- 
known to  us."$ 

So  we  come  at  last  to  the  "tobacco  heart," 


*July,  1912. 

"fZeitachr.    /.    exp.    Pathologic    u.    Pharmakologie,  1913,   XIV, 
p.  352. 

^Frankfurter  Zeitschr.  f.   Pathologic,  1913,  XIII,  p.  74. 


THE  VQICE  AND  SMOKING  197 

and  it  is  well  to  dispose  of  that  by  reference  to 
a  man  who  is  at  the  very  head  of 
the  medical  profession.     In  his        (tf-  , 
Principles      and      Practice      of          Tobacco 
Medicine,  a  standard  the  world  pf?* 

over,  no  less  an  authority  than 
Dr.  William  Osier  refers  to  "so-called  to- 
bacco heart"  and  speaks  of  three  kinds;  but  in 
this  connection  he  says  that  "cardiac  pain 
without  evidence  of  arterio-sclerosis  or  val- 
vular disease  is  not  of  much  moment."  This 
is  interpreted  by  one  of  his  former  associates 
in  Johns  Hopkins  University,  as  meaning  that 
"he  seems  to  doubt  that  'tobacco  heart'  has 
anything  to  do  with  tobacco,  and  is  convinced 
that,  whatever  its  cause,  it  is  scarcely  danger- 
ous enough  to  be  seriously  considered." 

These  quotations  will  show  the  correctness 
of  Dr.  Gilfillan's  statement  that  "the  actual 
harm  resulting  from  smoking  is  uncertain." 
Apparently  it  is  not  the  absorption  of  nicotine 
by  the  blood  vessels  that  is  responsible.  He 
says  further  that  "naturally,  but  a  small  pro- 
portion is  taken  up  by  the  mucous  mem- 
branes," and  that,  "whether  it  is  pure  vola- 
tilized nicotine  or  combinations  of  this  base  is 
not  certain." 

These  views  should  certainly  be  sufficient  to 
put  to  rest  any  doubts  about  the  effects  of 
cigarette  smoking.  In  case,  however,  any 
should  still  linger,  I  shall  conclude  by  giving 
two  views,  each  of  a  decided  nature,  on  the 
subjects  of  the  cigarette  and  the  voice  and  air 
passages,  and  on  the  effects  of  cigarettes  com- 
pared to  other  forms  of  tobacco  using. 


198  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

The  first  of  these  is  that  of  Dr.  Leonard  K. 
Hirshberg,  of  Baltimore,  who  was  for  years 
connected  with  Johns  Hopkins  University,  an 
institution  famous  for  its  medical  researches. 
Says  Dr.  Hirschberg: 

Ordinary  smoking  produces  no  perceptible  ir- 
ritation of  the  air-passages.  Indeed,  the  London 
Lancet  has  earnestly  advanced  the  view  that  its 
effect  upon  them  is  decidedly  antiseptic  and  bene- 
ficial. /  am  convinced  that  the  smoke  of  tobacco 
is  less  injurious  to  the  air-passages  than  the  smoke 
of  any  other  substance  that  burns. 

The  second  of  our  concluding  views — that 
on  the  effects  of  cigarettes  as  compared  to  the 
effects  of  other  forms  of  tobacco — is  from  an 
editorial  captioned  "The  Luckless  Cigarette" 
in  the  New  York  Medical  Journal,  of  July  25, 
1914: 

A  naughty  trick  of  newspaper  reporters  is  the  in- 
terviewing of  prominent  men  on  subjects  which  are 
of  universal  interest,  but  which  do  not  necessarily 
come  within  the  mental  scope  of  the  gentlemen  in- 
terviewed; the  trap  usually  proves  irresistible  and 
the  flattered  victim  genially  yields  up  copy  by  the 
yard  to  the  advantage  of  the  reporter,  but  to  the 
occasional  promotion  of  confused  thought  among 
readers.  Little  real  harm  results  as  a  rule  from  this 
practice,  interviews  being  generally  confined  to  such 
subjects  as  the  tariff,  business  depression,  the  ending 
of  war,  etc.,  concerning  which  one  man's  opinion  is 
worth  as  much  as  another's. 

When,  however,  the  interview  bears  on  matters 
of  physiology,  pathology,  and  hygiene,  there  is  a 
special  addition  of  at  least  150,000  medical  experts  to 
the  popular  audience,  an  addition  which  usually  can 
only  gnash  its  teeth  in  impotent  fury  while  the  de- 
lightfully worded  misinformation  is  spread  abroad. 


THE  VOICE  AND  SMOKING  199 

The  effects  of  alcohol  and  tobacco  are  frequently 
chosen  for  discussion  by  men  who  have  "succeeded," 
but  who  forget  the  paths  along  which  they  have  ac- 
quired exact  knowledge  and  permit  themselves  to 
stray  into  fields  where  their  opinions  are  valueless. 

The  exact  physiological  and  pathological  conse- 
quences of  drinking  and  smoking  are  among  the  most 
obscure  problems  of  medical  science.  Particularly 
do  the  uninformed,  however,  enjoy  an  attack  on  the 
cigarette;  it  is  cheap,  it  is  small,  and  its  patrons, 
numerous  as  they  are,  yet  form  an  insignificant 
minority  in  our  immense  population.  Therefore  the 
cigarette  and  its  users  are  fair  game  for  cheap  and 
silly  sneers;  sneers  which  are  capable,  however,  of 
cowing  an  entire  legislature,  as  in  Georgia  at  this 
moment.  Yet,  beyond  cavil,  it  has  been  proved 
scientifically  that  of  all  methods  of  using  tobacco 
cigarette  smoking  is  the  least  harmful. 

Some  months  ago  the  Lancet  undertook  a  care- 
ful laboratory  study  of  the  various  ways  of  consum- 
ing tobacco,  with  the  result  that  it  was  found  that 
the  cigarette,  Egyptian,  Turkish,  or  American,  yield- 
ed the  least  amount  of  nicotine  to  the  smoke  formed ; 
the  cigar  came  next  in  point  of  harmlessness ;  while 
the  pipe  overshadowed  the  cigar  to  the  extent  that 
from  seventy  to  ninety  per  cent,  of  nicotine  was  said 
to  exist  in  its  smoke.  As  to  the  paper  of  ciga- 
rettes the  attacks  are  simply  preposterous. 

It  is  not  without  interest  to  recall  that  nearly  ten 
years  ago,  the  New  York  Medical  Journal,  argu- 
ing along  entirely  different  lines,  came  to  exactly  the 
same  conclusion ;  but  it  added  that,  to  say  nothing  of 
other  obvious  drawbacks  to  his  habit,  the  chewer  of 
tobacco,  being  continuously  saturated  with  a  strong 
solution  of  tobacco,  was  in  much  worse  case  than  any 
smoker  could  possibly  be. 

So  much  in  behalf  of  the  rational  use  of  the 
cigarette.  Of  its  abuse  I  shall  speak  in  the 
succeeding  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  QUESTION  OF  EXCESS 

A  Comparison  of  Excesses  of  Various  Kinds — Moderate  Use 

of  Tobacco   Not   Injurious — Intemperate  Eating, 

Drinking,   Working — More    Mistakes 

about  Nicotine. 

BUSE"  is  one  of  those  words  which 
ought  to  be  used  carefully  but  is  gen- 
erally  used  without  any  care  at  all.  To 
say  of  any  given  article  that  its  abuse  is  harm- 
ful is  by  no  means  to  deny  that  its  use  is  bene- 
ficial. Yet,  so  easily  are  we  affected  by  the 
mere  noise  of  whosoever  can  talk  loudly 
that,  if  such  a  talker  continues  long  enough 
in  his  condemnation  of  extreme  examples  of 
the  abuse  of  this  thing  or  that,  we  are  prone  to 
take  his  mere  words  as  proof,  not  only  of  the 
evils  of  the  abuse,  but  also  of  the  inherent 
evil  of  the  thing  in  question.  It  depends,  in 
the  long  run,  on  the  persistence  of  the  talker. 
Many  people  make  nervous  wrecks  of  them- 
selves by  overindulgence  in  tea  and  coffee,  yet 
there  is  no  popular  clamor  against  those  caf- 
feine-laden beverages,  and  this  is  so  solely 
because  no  organized  crusade  of  publicity  has 
been  launched  against  them. 

For  the  same  reason,  although  we  know  that 
several  ice-cream  sodas  drunk  in  succession 
would  be  harmful,  we  are  still  willing  to  ad- 
mit that  an  occasional  one  is  both  harmless 
and  refreshing. 

Nor  does  the  matter  end  when  one  has  said 
that  what  is  good  for  the  normal  man — what 

200 


THE  QUESTION  OF  EXCESS  201 

may  even  be  necessary  for  him  in  moderation 
— is  bad  for  him  in  excess. 

The  average  lay-observer  uses  that  term 
"normal"  as  loosely  as  he  uses  the  word 
"abuse."  He  sees  a  man  who  seems  to  him 
normal,  suffering  from  the  use  of  some  article, 
and  not  stopping  to  inquire  whether  this  very 
suffering  is  not  proof  of  the  man's  abnormal- 
ity, he  decides  that  the  article  is  bad  for  the 
normal  individual. 

That  is  to  say,  he  does  so  if — and  only  if — 
there  has  been  against  the  article  in  question 
such  a  crusade  of  publicity  as  we  referred  to 
a  moment  ago. 

There  are  subnormal  people — thoroughly 
normal  in  their  appearance— on  whose  sys- 
tem eggs  act  as  a  poison,  because  the  body- 
cells  of  these  people  and  their  tissue-juices 
cannot  amalgamate  the  "white,"  the  albumen, 
of  eggs  with  their  serum  and  lymph;  but  we 
have  yet  to  hear  of  legislation  to  prohibit  the 
use  of  eggs. 

There  are  still  other  persons — also  appar- 
ently normal — to  whom  bread  is  poison ;  there 
are  still  others  that  cannot  eat  fish;  some  are 
poisoned  by  parsnips,  many  by  strawberries. 
Such  persons  are  said  by  medical  men  to  have 
an  "idiosyncrasy"  against  the  eggs,  the  bread, 
the  fish,  the  parsnips  or  the  strawberries,  and 
they  avoid  trouble  by  the  simple  process  of 
avoiding  the  thing  against  which  they  have  an 
idiosyncrasy. 

In  the  same  way,  there  are  in  the  world  a 
few  people  who  have  an  idiosyncrasy  against 


202  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

tobacco,  and  the  obvious  course  for  them  to 
pursue  is  to  let  tobacco  alone. 

To  prohibit  the  benefits  of  tobacco  to  all 
/  men  because  tobacco  is  bad  for  a  few  abnormal 
individuals  is  as  manifestly  unfair  as  it  would 
be,  for  like  reason,  to  prohibit  bread  and 
strawberries.  We  are  not,  however,  dealing 
with  the  abnormals.  For  them  the  warnings 
of  nature  or  of  their  family  physicians  should 
be  a  sufficient  guide  to  prevent  their  indul- 
gence in  anything  that  is  injurious  to  them, 
or  over-indulgence  in  anything  that,  if  used 
rationally,  would  be  not  only  harmless  but 
actually  beneficial,  whether  that  thing  be  tea, 
\  coffee,  dancing,  cake  or  tobacco. 

For  all  men  the  proof  lies  in  the  trial.  What 

we  have  here  to  concern  ourselves  with  is  the 

.  average  man,  and  for  him  the 

lerate        medical  profession  almost  unan- 

T  A°       A/"      imously  agrees  that  to  smoke 

lobaccoMot   tobacco  moderately  is  not  injur- 

Injunous         ious     jt  does  mote  than  this.    As 

we  have  seen,  it  asserts,  with  few  exceptions, 

that  cigarettes  are  the  best  form  in  which 

/tobacco  may  be  used. 

Some  evidence  along  this  line  we  have  al- 
ready produced,  but  volumes  of  fresh  quota- 
tions from  papers  prepared  by  leading  physi- 
cians could  still  be  given  to  substantiate  that 
statement.  Directly  to  the  point,  however,  is 
the  following  extract  from  an  editorial  in  the 
New  York  Medical  Journal: 

Once  more  we  reiterate  the  statements  that  in  our 
experience  and  judgment  injurious  effects  do  not  fol- 


THE  QUESTION  OF  EXCESS  203 

low  in  any  important  percentage  of  people  the  mod- 
erate smoking  of  tobacco,  whether  as  cigarettes  or 
otherwise;  excess  in  the  use  of  tobacco,  as  of 
all  other,  even  the  most  harmless,  things  is  bad, 
but  abuse  is  no  argument  against  proper  use;  ciga- 
rettes per  se  are  no  more  injurious  than  any  other 
form  of  smoking,  and  in  our  belief  certainly  not  so 
injurious  as  cigars,  since,  as  the  Lancet  (London) 
states,  such  nicotine  as  reaches  the  mouth  comes 
principally  if  not  entirely  from  the  moistened  tobacco 
in  contact  with  the  lips  which  is  undoubtedly  greater 
in  the  cigar  than  in  the  cigarette;  the  only  special 
dangers  inherent  in  cigarettes  are  the  temptation  to  a 
more  continuous  use  and  to  the  practice  of  inhalation. 
There  are  certain  classes  of  people  who  should  not 
smoke  at  all,  especially  neurotics,  the  subjects  of  cer- 
tain cardiac  affections,  and  those  in  whom  it  affects 
injuriously  either  the  sight  or  the  throat ;  and,  lastly, 
smoking  in  any  form  should  be  stringently  interdict- 
ed by  parents,  teachers,  etc.,  to  all  youths. 

Due  regard  being  had  to  these  principles,  we  as- 
sert once  more  positively  and  unhesitatingly  that 
cigarette  smoking  is  not  per  se  injurious,  and  that 
the  mass  of  sensational  newspaper  cases  ascribing 
all  sorts  of  horrors  to  the  use  of  cigarettes  are  as 
false  as  they  are  puerile.* 

The  fact  is  that  humanity  is  given  to  ex- 
cess. Beasts  over-indulge  in  nothing;  they 
do  not  even  over-indulge  in  muscular  effort 
in  the  pursuit  of  food;  in  diet,  and  in  the 
lapse  of  time  between  meals,  they  follow 
nature's  rules.  But  we  men  are  all  con- 
stantly doing  things  that  we  ought  not  to  do. 
Of  all  the  animals,  man  is  the  only  one  that 
does  not  live  a  natural  life,  and  conse- 

*Nevr  York  Medical  Journal.     Issue  of  January  27,  1900. 


204  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

quently,  he  is  the  only  one  that  does  not  gen- 
erally die  of  old  age,  the  natural  consequence 
of  the  running  down  of  the  physical  machine. 

Man  overworks  and  endangers  his  muscular 

system.  He  almost  universally  and  habitually 

eats  to  excess  and  thereby  weak- 

Intemperate     eng  his  digestive  organs  and  the 

„*¥•'  cells   and   tissues    of   his   whole 

Drinking,  body<  Consequently  he  contracts 
Working  diseases  that  bring  him  to  an  un- 
timely end.  The  lower  animals  in  their 
natural  state  rarely  die  of  disease.  In  our 
treatment  of  domesticated  animals  we  try  to 
see  to  it  that  they  are  provided  with  the  proper 
food  in  proper  quantities,  while  we  ourselves 
often  eat  and  drink  what  we  know  is  not  good 
for  us,  and  consume  quantities  far  in  excess 
of  what  is  required. 

To  be  honest,  we  lead  lives  that  are  largely 
suicidal.  "We  die  daily"  is  the  way  it  is  put 
by  the  Medical  Press  and  Circular,  an  Eng- 
lish medical  periodical  of  repute.  In  an 
editorial  on  smoking,  in  which  it  comments 
on  the  study  of  the  effect  of  tobacco  by  J. 
Pawinski,  who  has  been  quoted  in  another 
chapter,  that  journal  says: 

We  eat,  and  poison  ourselves  through  our  colons ; 
drink,  and  line  our  arteries  with  lime;  and  are  merry, 
with  the  most  disastrous  physical  results.  And,  of 
course,  we  smoke.  We  were  always  told  it  was  bad 
for  us.  That  is  probably  why  we  ever  wanted  to  do 
it.  We  are  still  being  told  it  is  bad  for  us.  Not  in  the 
simple  downright  terms  of  our  youth,  but  now  it  is 
the  "lambent  pupillage  of  slow,  low  dry  chat"  that 
encourages  conviction.  *  *  * 


THE  QUESTION  OF  EXCESS  205 

Yet  we  all  smoke,  and  most  of  us  are  apparently 
none  the  worse  for  it,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  experience 
that  the  smoker  who  knocks  off  for  a  time  is  not  ob- 
viously improved  in  body  or  temper.  So  there  things 
stand.  * 

This  is  a  point  worthy  of  more  extended 
notice,  and  one  on  which  I  shall  quote  from  a 
few  more  eminent  English  authorities.  Sir 
Thomas  S.  Clouston,  whose  opinions  rank 
well  among  all  physicians,  says: 

The  use  of  tobacco  has  become  the  rule  rather  than 
the  exception  among  the  grown  men  of  Europe  and 
America  and  of  some  parts  of  Asia.  If  its  use  is  re- 
stricted to  full-grown  men,  if  only  good  tobacco  is 
used,  not  of  too  great  strength,  and  if  it  is  not  used  to 
excess,  then  there  are  no  scientific  proofs  that  it  has 
any  injurious  effects,  if  there  is  no  idiosyncrasy 
against  it.  Speaking  generally,  it  exercises  a  sooth- 
ing influence  when  the  nervous  system  is  in  any  way 
irritable.  It  tends  to  calm  and  continuous  thinking, 
and  in  many  men  promotes  the  digestion  of  food.  To 
those  good  results  there  are,  however,  exceptions.  It 
sometimes  sets  up  a  very  strong  desire  for  its  exces- 
sive use;  this  often  passing  into  a  morbid  craving 
which  leads  to  excess  and  hurt.  *  *  *  Tobacco, 
properly  used  may,  in  some  cases,  undoubtedly  be 
made  a  mental  hygienic. 

In  the  same  vein  Dr.  Jonathan  Pereira  says : 
"I  am  not  acquainted  with  any  well-ascer- 
tained ill  effects  resulting  from  the  habitual 
practice  of  smoking."  Dr.  Benjamin  W. 
Richardson,  writing  in  The  Lancet,  of  Lon- 
don, to  which  eminent  medical  journal  we 
have  often  had  occasion  to  refer,  goes  even 

*Medical  Press  and  Circular.     Issue  of  August  12,  1914. 


206  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

further.  He  declares  that  tobacco  "is  innocent 
as  compared  with  alcohol;  it  is  in  no  sense 
worse  than  tea."  And  another  eminent  Eng- 
lish authority,  F.  W.  Fairholt,  F.  S.  A.,  says  in 
his  book,  Tobacco: 

The  author's  father  died  at  the  age  of  72 — he  had 
been  twelve  hours  a  day  in  a  tobacco  manufactory 
for  nearly  fifty  years;  and  he  both  smoked  and 
chewed  while-  busy  in  the  labors  of  the  workshop, 
sometimes  amid  a  dense  cloud  of  steam  from  drying 
the  damp  tobacco  over  stoves;  and  his  health  and 
appetite  were  perfect  to  the  day  of  his  death ;  he  was 
a  model  of  muscular  and  stomachic  energy ;  in  which 
his  son,  who  neither  smokes,  snuffs,  nor  chews,  by  no 
means  rivals  him  or  does  him  credit. 

Nerve  specialists  are  not  lacking  in  agree- 
ment with  these  opinions,  but  we  shall  let  one 
example  suffice.  Dr.  Joseph  Collins,  a  cele- 
brated expert  on  nervous  diseases,  in  his  book 
on  those  ills  says: 

After  maturity  the  moderate  use  of  tobacco,  alco- 
hol, tea,  coffee  is  not  only  devoid  of  injurious  capac- 
ity to  the  individual,  but  it  may  assist  him  in  the  en- 
joyment of  life  and  the  performance  of  his  duties 
without  in  the  least  jeopardizing  or  impairing  physi- 
cal or  mental  vigor. 

In  the  preceding  chapter  of  this  book,  I 
cited  many  noted  medical  authorities  who 
agree  substantially  with  the  above  concerning 
the  harmlessness  of  smoking,  especially  the 
smoking  of  cigarettes  in  moderation.  At  this 
point,  I  shall  record  the  views  of  only  a  few  in 
so  far  as  they  deal  with  this  question  of  ex- 
cess. In  an  able  article  on  "The  Truth  About 
Tobacco"  Leonard  K.  Hirshberg,  M.D.,  M.S., 


THE  QUESTION  OF  EXCESS  207 

A.  B.,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  of  Balti- 
more, has  said : 

It  is  apparent  to  any  one  with  common  sense  that, 
in  studying  the  effects  of  tobacco  on  the  human  sys- 
tem, we  must  consider  healthy  adults  of  normal  con- 
stitutions. There  are  people  who  cannot  abide  cigar 
smoke,  just  as  there  are  people  who  cannot  abide 
caviar.  But  such  folks  are  palpably  designed  by  na- 
ture to  eschew  the  weed. 

Tobacco,  alcohol,  and  weather  are  blamed  for  the 
great  majority  of  all  diseases  that  have  no  obvious 
origin.  If  a  man  is  killed  by  a  fallen  derrick,  even  a 
mental  healer  is  clever  enough  to  accuse  the  broken 
rope,  but  if  he  dies  of  angina  pectoris  or  chronic 
bronchitis,  and  his  family  yearns  for  enlightenment 
as  to  the  cause  of  his  malady,  your  average,  old- 
school  family  doctor,  with  a  laudable  desire  to  be 
agreeable  at  no  expense  of  meditation,  will  men- 
tion cigars  and  let  it  go  at  that.  But  such  a  mode  of 
reasoning,  to  put  it  mildly,  is  childishly  unscientific. 
As  well  say  that  an  ardent  pie-eater  who  dies  of 
gangrene  owes  his  demise  to  the  mortal  pumpkin 
pie.  *  *  * 

Hoarseness,  which  sometimes  follows  excessive 
cigar  or  cigarette  smoking,  particularly  in  winter,  is 
to  be  laid,  not  to  tobacco,  but  to  the  general  imbecil- 
ity of  the  smoker.  A  man  who  smokes  in  the  open 
air  when  the  temperature  is  at  twenty  degrees,  and 
thus  inhales  alternate  blasts  of  hot  and  frigid  air,  or 
begins  to  smoke  before  breakfast  and  keeps  his 
mouth  membranes  and  muscles  of  suction  busy  until 
he  falls  asleep  at  night,  is  certainly  not  to  be  regarded 
as  a  normal  man,  and  it  is  unfair  to  condemn  smoking 
in  normal  men  because  this  one  simpleton  happens 
to  be  injured  by  it.  If  a  man  talked  all  day  or  drank 
all  day  or  walked  all  day,  he  would  be  vastly  more 
damaged.  Again,  he  would  grow  hoarse  much  more 


208  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

rapidly  if  he  ate  snowballs  or  inhaled  wood  smoke  or 
stood  watching  a  fire  in  a  hay  warehouse. 

Dyspepsia  and  loss  of  flesh  very  rarely  follow  the 
use  of  tobacco,  and,  if  the  latter  may  be  held  at  fault 
at  all,  it  is  but  indirectly.  Whenever  the  salivary 
glands  are  stimulated  and  saliva  forms,  the  stomach 
is  stimulated  also  and  extra  acid  and  pepsin  are  se- 
creted. This  is  nature's  method,  when  food  is  intro- 
duced into  the  mouth,  of  preparing  for  the  process  of 
digestion.  Now,  if  the  salivary  glands  are  stimulated 
by  something  other  than  food,  the  stomach  does  not 
know  this,  but  goes  on  secreting  digestive  acids  and 
pepsin  as  usual.  These  things  finding  no  food  to  en- 
gage them,  may  cause  trouble,  and  the  labor  of  pro- 
ducing them  to  no  purpose  necessarily  drains  the 
body.  So  it  is  apparent  that  chewing  tobacco  may 
cause  a  "sour  stomach,"  just  as  chewing  gum  may 
do  the  same  thing.  However,  I  am  not  dealing  in  this 
article  with  tobacco  chewing,  but  with  tobacco  smok- 
ing. There  is  no  evidence  whatever  that  the  very 
slight  salivation  caused  by  smoking  injures  the  stom- 
ach in  any  way. 

The  nervous  headaches,  neuralgia,  and  dizziness 
commonly  laid  to  smoking  are  fantastic  creations  of 
extra-moral  minds.  In  all  the  literature  of  medicine 
there  is  no  proof  that  tobacco  ever  caused  any  of 
these  diseases.  I  have  no  doubt  that,  in  a  man  prone 
to  dizziness,  a  cigar  may  bring  on  an  attack,  but,  at 
the  risk  of  tiresome  repetition,  let  me  submit  again 
that  it  is  manifestly  unfair  to  condemn  tobacco  be- 
cause it  does  not  agree  with  invalids.  There  are 
plenty  of  sick  people  who  cannot  eat  roast  beef,  and 
there  are  plenty  of  well  people  with  a  mysterious  in- 
dividual antipathy  to  other  things.  But  we  must 
leave  out  diseased  conditions  and  idiosyncrasies  when 
we  consider  the  effect  of  tobacco  upon  the  normal, 
healthy  man. 

The  same  mistake  has  been  made  in  condemning 
smoking  out  of  hand  because  of  its  obviously  perni- 


THE  QUESTION  OF  EXCESS  209 

cious  influence  upon  children.  Let  us  admit,  for  the 
sake  of  argument,  that  cigarette  smoking  is  a  bad 
practice  for  small  boys.  Does  that  prove  anything 
regarding  its  effect  upon  grown  men?  I  think  it  only 
fair  to  answer  in  the  negative.  *  *  *  Ten  ciga- 
rettes a  day  may  injure  a  boy  of  twelve,  but  that  is 
no  argument  against  ten  cigarettes  a  day  for  a  man 
of  thirty-five.  * 

Another  well-known  physician  who  has 
spoken  his  mind^  on  this  matter  of  tobacco 
temperance  is  Donald  McCaskey,  M.D.,  mem- 
ber of  the  staff  of  the  General  Hospital  of  Lan- 
caster, Pennsylvania,  and  Fellow  of  the  New 
York  Academy  of  Medicine.  In  one  of  his  arti- 
cles for  "The  Doctor's  Helps,"  a  widely  syn- 
dicated newspaper  feature,  Dr.  McCaskey, 
after  deprecating  the  immoderate  use  of  ciga- 
rettes, says : 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  occasional  cigarette, 
smoked  either  by  man  or  woman  is  at  all  harmful, 
any  more  than  do  I  believe  that  an  occasional  game 
of  cards,  at  which  the  parties  are  thoroughly  enjoy- 
ing themselves  is  harmful.  It  all  depends  on  the  atti- 
tude of  mind,  and  the  condition  under  which  the  habit 
is  carried  on. 

We  now  come  to  the  opinion  of  an  expert 
whose  position  for  years  brought  him  in  con- 
tact with  wretched  human  beings  suffering 
the  tortures  of  practically  all  the  excesses  man 
is  heir  to.  He  is  Dr.  F.  W.  Robertson.  His  ex- 
cellent service  as  head  of  the  psychopathic  de- 
partment in  Bellevue  Hospital,  New  York, 
made  him  widely  known  and  his  conclusions 

*Harper's  Weekly.    Issue  of  January  4,  1913. 


210  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

respected;  and  he  goes  on  record  concerning 
cigarettes  with  the  following: 

I  have  been  something  of  a  student  of  cigarettes, 
and  it  is  my  belief  that  they  offer  the  mildest  and  pur- 
est form  in  which  tobacco  is  used.  A  cigarette  is 
made  from  the  finest  bright  Virginia  tobacco,  which 
contains  only  one  to  one  and  a  half  per  cent,  of  nico- 
tine against  six  to  eight  per  cent,  in  the  average 
cigar.  I  have  looked  carefully  into  the  analyses  of 
cigarettes  and  cigarette  paper,  made  at  different 
times,  and  it  is  my  conviction  that  injurious  results 
do  not  follow  their  use. 

It  is  agreed,  as  hinted  above,  that  the  only 
possible  harm  that  might  result  from  over- 
indulgence in  tobacco  must  come  from  the 
nicotine  that  is  a  natural  component  of  all  to- 
bacco ;  but  man  very  quickly  immunizes  him- 
self to  the  effects  of  nicotine.  On  this  point, 
I  again  quote  from  an  article  by  Dr.  Hirsh- 
berg: 

The  small  boy,  when  he  tackles  his  first  cigar,  be- 
comes violently  ill.  But  his  second  cigar  gives  him 
less  discomfort,  and  his  third  still  less.  By  and  by 
he  becomes  entirely  immune,  and  in  the  end  smoking 
becomes  his  solace  and  earthly  reward,  and  nicotine 
has  no  more  effect  upon  his  internal  economy  than  so 
much  mayonnaise  dressing  or  vegetable  soup. 

It  is  this  capacity  of  the  human  body  to  immunize 
itself  against  poisons  that  makes  the  animal  and  other 
experiments  of  the  foes  of  tobacco  so  silly.  Yellow 
fever,  as  every  one  knows,  is  a  horrible  and  deadly 
disease,  and  yet  a  man  who  has  once  had  it  may  re- 
gard it  ever  after  with  the  calm  indifference  with 
which  an  ordinary  man  regards  a  shave.  *  *  * 


THE  QUESTION  OF  EXCESS  211 

The  man  who  has  learned  to  smoke,  and,  in  conse- 
quence, has  gone  through  the  small  boy's  experience 
of  mild  poisoning,  is  immune  thereafter,  and  may 
take  into  his  system  daily  the  small  quantify  of  nico- 
tine which  lies  in  tobacco  smoke  without  the  slight- 
est qualm  or  fear. 

From  this  it  logically  follows  that  a  man 
may  safely  smoke  a  much  larger  amount  of  the 
kind  of  tobacco  that  is  manufac-  M 

tured  into  cigarettes  than  that          ...  M°re 
which  is  used  for  smoking  in         Mistakes 
other  forms,  because  of  the  very          AT   Y- 
small  amount  of  nicotine  in  ciga- 
rette tobacco.    As  stated  on  quoted  authorities 
in  this  book,  the  quantity  of  nicotine  in  ciga- 
rettes is  negligible,  being  on  an  average  little 
more  than  one  per  cent.,  while  cigars  and  pipe 
tobaccos  often  contain  five  per  cent. 

There  is  more  than  five  times  as  much  to- 
bacco in  an  ordinary  cigar  as  in  a  cigarette. 
Therefore,  so  far  as  nicotine  is  concerned,  a 
hundred  cigarettes  equal  practically  four 
cigars.  Thus  it  stands  to  reason  that  the  man 
who  smokes  fifteen  cigarettes  a  day — which 
perhaps  is  above  the  average  number  con- 
sumed by  the  average  smoker — has  no  con- 
cern about  nicotine,  to  which,  at  all  events, 
his  system  is  immune. 

Really,  it  is  not  nicotine  that  makes  "a  good 
smoke"  any  more  than  it  is  the  bone  that 
makes  a  good  beefsteak.  It  is  true,  some 
smokers  have  a  notion  that  it  is  the  amount  of 
nicotine  in  tobacco  that  counts,  that  makes  a 
certain  tobacco  enjoyable  or  not  as  the  case 
may  be,  and  such  smokers  believe  that,  there- 


212  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

fore,  they  must  look  for  supreme  satisfaction  in 
the  stronger  forms  of  smoking.  But  these 
men  are  mistaken.  Nicotine  is  not  the  part  of 
tobacco  that  has  to  do  with  flavor,  aroma  or 
burning  quality,  and  it  is  only  the  flavor, 
aroma  and  burning  quality  that  count. 

And  now  one  word  more  and  I  have  done 
with  this  phase  of  the  cigarette  question. 

From  my  quotation  of  the  foregoing  au- 
thoritative statements,  no  reader  will,  I  trust, 
conclude  that  I  am  trying  to  condone  the  ex- 
cessive use  of  cigarettes.  Far  from  that.  It 
is  true  that  over-indulgence  in  tobacco  is  bad 
for  the  human  system,  but  so  is  excessive  eat- 
ing of  food,  drinking  of  tea  and  of  coffee,  ex- 
cessive dancing,  or  overwork. 

To  all  such  excesses  I  am  opposed.  But  I  do 
believe  that  an  irrational  use  of  tobacco  is  less 
harmful  than  excesses  of  any  of  the  other 
ordinary  kinds;  that  temperate  indulgence  in 
tobacco  is  not  only  harmless,  but  actually 
beneficial  to  normal  men;  and,  lastly,  that 
cigarettes  as  manufactured  today,  are  the 
best  form  in  which  tobacco  is  used. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR 

Tobacco  Proved  to  Be  a  Necessity  to  Armies  in  the  Pield^— 
Revelations   by    Motion    Pictures — Solace    for   Men    on 
Destroyer  Fleets — Bond  between  King  and  Soldier — 
Appeals  of  Men  on  Firing  Lines  Lavishly  Met — Gov- 
ernments Pass  Gifts  of  Cigarettes  Duty  Free — Test 
of  Valor  in   Mexican  Battle — Favorite   Smoke 
in  Army  and  Navy — Remarkable 
"Titanic"  Spectacle. 

I  HAVE  promised  a  word  on  the  cigarette  in 
war,  and  I  am  now  about  to  keep  that 
promise.  It  was  made  because  war  is  cer- 
tainly the  most  trying  of  all  ordeals,  mentally 
and  physically,  to  which  the  human  organism 
is  likely  to  be  subjected. 

It  was  my  purpose  to  show  that  the  relaxa- 
tion furnished  by  tobacco  is  necessary  in  times 
of  great  stress,  and  that  the  form  in  which  that 
relaxation  is  absolutely  certain  not  to  degen- 
erate into  a  reaction  is  the  cigarette.  The 
proof  of  this  thesis  is,  it  seems  clear  to  me, 
furnished  by  the  medical  authorities  of  con- 
tending armies  when  they  permit,  and  even 
encourage,  cigarette  smoking  by  those  fighting 
soldiers  whose  health  and  energy  are  so  largely 
in  their  care. 

Apart  from  all  discussion  of  the  issues  di- 
rectly involved  in  the  great  European  War 
that  burst  upon  a  startled  earth  in  August, 
1914,  one  of  the  surprises  of  that  tremendous 
conflict  was  a  world-wide  realization  of  the 
value  of  the  cigarette  in  modern  warfare. 

213 


214  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Smoking,  and  especially  cigarette  smoking, 
was  proved  to  be  essential  to  the  comfort  of 
the  soldiers  and  stimulating  to  their  valor. 

The  part  that  the  cigarette  plays  in  the  wel- 
fare of  those  soldiers  was  brought  out  forcibly 
at  the  beginning  of  hostilities  and  has  resulted 
in  a  complete  change  of  opinion  on  the  part  of 
most  people  who  thoughtlessly  condemned 
cigarettes  before  this  conflict  of  nations  began. 

Cigarettes  have  determined  the  outcome  of 
battles.  By  the  simple  act  of  lighting  ciga- 
rettes, the  men  who  compose  the  rank  and  file 
of  armies  have  at  crucial  moments  been  nerved 
to  deeds  of  daring  that  were  destined  to  decide 
the  fate  of  a  campaign  and  the  fortune  of  a 
war. 

The  spectacle  of  a  single  man  smoking  while 

bullets  were  singing  their  songs  of  death  about 

him  has  determined  the  issues  of 

*f.ar  a  contest  and  accomplished  the 

a  Necessity  ^ownfall  o£  a  government.  In 

•°  th™!?-*™  times  °f  grave  danger  men  have 
resorted  to  the  solace  of  the  cig- 
arette to  gain  that  confidence  which  carries  the 
brave  to  victory.  Under  unusual  strain,  in 
tense  situations,  where  human  life  has  been  in 
the  balance,  fellow  workers,  suffering  from 
utter  exhaustion,  have,  after  puffing  a  ciga- 
rette, returned  to  their  task  with  renewed 
vigor  and  succeeded  where,  a  moment  pre- 
vious, they  faced  failure. 

That  the  cigarette  is  a  requisite  of  an  army 
in  the  field  is  admitted  by  men  in  all  walks 
oi  life.  Consequently,  we  now  see  every  ef- 


THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR  215 

fort  bent,  in  these  anxious  times,  to  supply  the 
men  on  the  fighting  lines  with  the  paper-rolled 
tobacco  from  which  they  seem  to  gather  that 
reserve  and  daring  which  make  their  charges 
in  the  armed  European  camps  unparalleled 
in  the  annals  of  war. 

This  has  been  demonstrated  more  than  once 
in  France,  Belgium  and  Poland,  where  gigantic 
armies  struggle  desperately  for  days  to  cap- 
ture a  trench  or  advance  a  few  rods  against  an 
adversary.  Millions  of  men  engage  in  the 
most  awful  onslaughts  and  most  stubborn  re- 
sistances the  world  has  ever  known,  one  side 
keyed  up  to  reckless  enthusiasm,  the  other  to 
dogged  defense  along  hundreds  of  miles  of  bat- 
tle-front; and  in  this  titanic  conflict  the  ciga- 
rette is  reckoned  a  formidable  factor. 

Emphasizing  the  part  cigarettes  play  in  this 
world  war  and  the  recognition  by  belligerent 
governments  of  the  necessity  of  having  a  con- 
stant supply  for  the  soldiers,  hundreds  of 
American  newspapers  have  published  thought- 
ful eulogistic  editorials  on  the  subject.  We 
select  one  from  the  Lynn  (Mass.)  Evening 
News. 

THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR 

Scarcely  a  week  goes  by  in  this  country  or  in  any 
part  of  Europe  but  that  there  is  an  appeal  from  some 
organization  for  tobacco  for  the  soldiers,  and  espe- 
cially for  cigarettes.  In  Berlin  receptacles  were 
placed  in  the  streets  into  which  such  contributions 
might  be  placed.  In  Paris  and  London  other  meth- 
ods of  collection  have  been  employed,  but  the  same 
urgency  of  appeal  has  been  felt.  To  this  country 
general  appeals  have  come,  and  also  a  number  of 


216  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

special  appeals  for  the  same  thing.  The  soldiers,  we 
are  told,  must  have  their  tobacco;  the  cigarette  is 
the  handiest  form  in  which  this  can  be  sent;  there- 
fore contributions  of  cigarettes  are  asked  for  in  the 
name  of  humanity  and  patriotism. 

The  appeal  has  been  answered,  too.  The  number 
of  "smokes"  sent  to  the  front  has  been  enormous, 
and  shipments  still  continue,  and  are  likely  to  do  so 
as  long  as  the  war  continues. 

The  small  boy,  however,  should  not  imagine  that 
this  means  that  the  whole  world  has  come  all  at  once 
to  look  upon  the  cigarette  as  one  of  the  greatest 
things  in  the  world,  and  that  he  himself  will  be 
allowed  to  take  up  the  habit  in  peace.  Cigarettes 
are  just  as  bad  for  small  boys  as  ever. 

The  case  of  the  soldier  on  service  under  modern 
conditions  is  very  different.  Nothing  can  well  be 
more  trying  to  the  nerves  of  men  than  such  service 
as  millions  have  been  giving  in  turn  in  the  trenches. 
The  noise,  the  suspense,  the  discomfort,  are  extreme. 
Unless  men  have  something  to  soothe  the  nerves 
somewhat,  to  deaden  the  loneliness,  there  is  more 
than  a  chance  that  the  death  list  will  mount  from 
other  reasons  than  wounds.  The  cigarette  is  a  neu- 
rotic and  is  so  regarded  by  the  people  who  are  so 
urgent  in  sending  them  to  the  front.  Whatever  may 
be  the  effect  under  normal  conditions  of  living,  they 
help  soldiers  at  the  front  to  endure  the  strain.  All 
anti-cigarette  crusades  must  recognize  this  fact  and 
be  governed  accordingly.* 

Correspondents  at  the  front,  sending  home 
such  facts,  might  conceivably  write  from  a 
prejudiced  point  of  view,  but  we  have  one  es- 
sentially modern  witness  whose  testimony 
cannot  be  impeached.  We  have  the  motion 
pictures. 

*Lynn  (Mass.)  ,  Evening  News.    Issue  of  January  5, 1915. 


Phota .    from    Underwood    n    Undcrisinna 


Photos,    -from    Brown    Bros.,    N.    Y. 

SOLACE  FOR  WOUNDED  SOLDIERS 

Ciearettes  have  played  an  important  part  in  the  Euronean  War  as 
comforters  of  the  wounded.  At  the  top  is  shown  a  German  officer  lighting 
a  cigarette  for  a  wounded  Russian  soldier  who  sought  shelter  in  a  hole  dug 
by  an  exploding  shell  during  a  battle.  Below  a  French  officer  is  distribut- 
ing cigarettes  to  wounded  British  soldiers.  While  the  Belgian  clergyman 
in  the  third  picture  prefers  a  cigar,  the  wounded  soldiers  cling  to  their 
favorite  smoke,  the  cigarette. 


THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR  217 

Motion  picture  scenes  in  different  portions 
of  the  war  zone  depict  the  almost  universal  use 
of  the  cigarette  by  the  men  under      0      f    . 
arms.     In  the  Belgian  pictures,     K*vci«*l™s 
taken  under  the  auspices  of  the  _.    .  y 


Chicago  Tribune,  part  of  the  pro-  i 

ceeds    from    the    exhibition    of 
which  goes  to  the  relief  of  the  people  of  that 
devastated  country,  one  gains  some  idea  of  the 
extent  to  which  the  cigarette  is  distributed 
among  the  men. 

In  one  of  the  scenes,  for  instance,  a  strip  of 
the  Belgian  firing-line  appears,  in  the  very  cen- 
ter of  which  a  man  is  seen  calmly  puffing  a 
cigarette.  Another  picture  shows  a  little  girl, 
almost  surrounded  by  soldiers  who  smilingly 
accept  the  cigarettes  she  offers  them.  Some 
tuck  the  gifts  behind  their  ears,  others  imme- 
diately light  them,  and  one,  in  order  to  get 
more  than  his  fair  share,  roguishly  passes  the 
little  girl  several  times. 

Similar  scenes  occur  in  other  motion  picture 
exhibitions  given  under  the  auspices  of  the 
New  York  World,  the  New  York  Evening  Sun, 
the  New  York  Staats-Zeitung,  the  Chicago 
Herald  and  other  newspapers.  They  have  all 
been  caught  by  the  camera  that  does  not  lie. 
Of  the  many  weekly  war  "releases"  in  the  mo- 
tion picture  theatres,  one  rarely  is  seen  where 
officers  or  men  are  not  smoking  cigarettes. 

One  of  the  most  striking  of  the  ordinary 
photographs  to  come  from  the  front  is  shown 
in  the  New  York  Sun  of  November  1,  1914.  A 
body  of  Belgian  troops  pass  through  a  town, 
the  sidewalk  lined  with  people  watching  a  man 


218  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

handing  cigars  and  cigarettes  to  the  horsemen 
as  they  ride  by.  The  wistful  glances  of  the 
soldiers  as  they  catch  sight  of  the  large  box 
that  this  benefactor  extends,  indicate  their 
anticipation  of  the  comfort  these  "smokes"  are 
going  to  afford  them  later  on. 

Of  a  not  dissimilar  appeal  is  a  half-page  pic- 
ture published  in  Collier's  Weekly.  It  is  an 
enlargement  from  a  snap-shot  made  inside  the 
German  lines,  and  it  shows  the  German  Crown 
Prince,  his  arms  folded  at  his  back,  content- 
edly smoking  a  cigarette  as  he  watches  a  ma- 
neuver of  the  army.  Nor  is  the  royal  person- 
age by  any  means  the  only  one  in  that  photo- 
graph who  is  addicted  to  the  use  of  tobacco  in 
this  form  so  popular  among  the  fighting  men 
of  Europe. 

Photographs  of  women  entering  the  trench- 
es in  Flanders  to  distribute  cigarettes  to  the 
soldiers  have  been  printed  generally  in  the 
Sunday  war  supplements  of  the  larger  news- 
papers of  the  United  States.  One,  a  splendid 
reproduction,  published  by  the  New  York 
Times  of  December  13, 1914,  shows  a  group  of 
French  infantrymen  who  have  halted  on  one 
of  the  wet  roads  in  Belgium  to  light  their 
cigarettes. 

Again  and  again  have  hundreds  of  these 
fighting  men  gone  to  death  with  cigarettes 
between  their  lips.  One  positively  striking 
example  is  furnished  us  when  we  turn  from 
the  land  battles  to  the  sea  war.  Illustrating 
the  manner  in  which  the  cigarette  buoys  one 
up  in  the  face  of  certain  destruction,  the 
New  York  Globe  comments  as  follows  on  the 


Copyright   Underwood  &   Underwood 


Photo,  from  Brown   Bros.,  N.    Y.  Photo,   from   Paul   Thompson,    N.    Y. 

CIGARETTES   OF   ROYALTY  AND   THE   RANKS 

In  the  top  picture  the  German  Crown  Prince  (second  from  the  right)  is 
shown  resting  after  a  battle.  All  of  his  aides  are  enjoying  cigarettes  with 
him.  Below,  at  the  left,  a  wounded  Frenchman  shares  a  light  with  a 
"London  Scottish"  comrade.  The  picture  at  the  right  indicates  that 
Italian  soldiers  enjoy  their  cigarettes  as  much  as  the  men  of  the  other 
warring  nations. 


THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR  219 

loss   of  the   British   battleship  Formidable, 
after  being  torpedoed  by  a  German  submarine: 

THE  CIGARETTE  OF  COURAGE 

Captain  Loxley  of  the  Formidable  went  down  with 
his  ship,  standing  on  the  bridge  calmly  smoking  a 
cigarette.  A  survivor  of  the  disaster  tells  how  he 
rushed  up  on  deck,  borrowed  a  cigarette  from  one  of 
his  comrades  and  a  light  from  another,  and  then 
dashed  below  again  to  get  more  cigarettes.  We  often 
hear  also  of  other  heroes  who  go  to  their  doom  lip- 
ping a  cigarette  between  their  teeth.  It  never  is  a 
cigar  or  a  pipe,  but  always  a  cigarette. 

In  moments  of  severest  tension  few  men  can  pre- 
serve a  complete  semblance  of  composure  and  con- 
trol without  something  to  finger  or  munch,  some 
little  means  of  muscular  occupation,  of  nervous  dis- 
charge. Talleyrand,  the  classical  example  of  the 
undismayable,  had  no  need  of  a  cigarette  between 
fingers  or  lips,  but  his  sang-froid  is  said  to  have 
been  literally  physical,  derived  from  a  pulse  down 
in  the  forties. 

A  singer  facing  the  dread  ordeal  of  a  new  public 
may  handle  a  piece  of  music  to  which  he  never  re- 
fers, a  slip  of  paper  bearing  words,  or,  if  the  singer 
be  a  woman,  a  fan  or  a  flower.  The  men  dying  for 
country  and  faith  are  going  to  death  with  the  solace 
of  the  cigarette.  A  neat  revenge  that  makes  this 
snare  of  youth  a  white  badge  of  courage.* 

Cable  messages  telling  of  the  sinking  of  the 
Formidable  describe  in  detail  the  last  mo- 
ments of  members  of  the  crew  of  the  sinking 
ship,  when  the  lifeboats  pulled  away.  There 
was  no  excitement,  no  clamor,  no  appeal  for 
aid,  no  last  words,  no  fear  among  the  stout- 
hearted men  whose  lives  were  to  be  calculated 


*New  York  Globe.    Issue  of  January  5,  1915. 


220  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

in  minutes.  As  though  they  were  preparing 
for  a  lawn  fete,  they  brought  a  piano  on  deck, 
played  ragtime,  sang,  and,  following  the  exam- 
ple of  Captain  Loxley,  blew  the  fragrance  of 
their  cigarettes  into  the  face  of  death. 

Cigarettes  were  their  solace  in  the  supreme 
moment,  when  they  stood  the  test  for  which 
their  training  had  prepared  them.  It  was  only 
when  the  wounded  fighting  ship,  in  the  final 
throes,  lurched  beneath  the  icy  waters  of  the 
English  Channel  that  the  cigarettes  were  ex- 
tinguished— with  the  lives  of  the  men. 

As  these  tars  died  with  their  cigarettes,  so 
others  have  been  saved  with  theirs.  When 
the  survivors  of  the  British  dreadnought  Au- 
dacious were  taken  aboard  the  liner  Olym- 
pic after  the  explosion  which  wrecked  that 
great  floating  fortress,  one  strange  fact  was 
observed  to  be  common  to  nearly  all  of  them. 
With  scarcely  an  exception,  every  man  Jack 
among  them  had  a  cigarette  tucked  behind  his 
ear.  They  had  lost  their  ship  and  practically 
all  of  their  personal  belongings — but  they  had 
saved  their  paper-rolled  tobacco. 

Indeed,  the  cigarette  is  especially  necessary 
to  these  fighting  sailors.  On  the  torpedo-boat 
destroyers  of  the  contending  navies  the  Jack 
tars  are  on  the  verge  of  nervous  prostration  at 
all  times.  The  boats  are  so  light,  the  machin- 
ery so  strong  and  powerful,  and  the  pounding 
of  the  engines  maintains  such  a  harrowing  vi- 
bration throughout  the  framework  of  these 
wasps  of  the  sea,  that  the  crews  are  brought  to 
the  verge  of  collapse  after  a  few  days.  Aboard 
the  great  battleships  there  is  less  "give"  to  the 


THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR  221 

framework,  and  there  the  strain  on  the  men 
is  not  so  great;  but  on  the  destroyers,  with 
machinery  running  at  high  speed  day  and 
night,  the  strain  is  described  as  almost  unbear- 
able. After  a  week  or  ten  days  the  nerves  of 
the  men  on  these  boats  go  to  pieces,  and  they 
are  transferred  to  the  larger,  steadier  vessels 
of  the  fighting  line. 

When  the  flesh  of  the  men  of  the  destroyer 
fleet  shakes  like  jelly,  and  their  nerves  jump, 
and  they  start  at  any  unusual        c  .       f 
sound,  it  is  the  cigarette  that  of-       *oi™e  fo 
ten  restores  them  to  something  Men  on 

like  normal ;  that  slows  down  the  Uesroyer 
feverish  beating  of  nerves  that 
try  to  keep  pace  with  the  rapidly  revolving 
crank-shafts  of  the  fastest  boats  ever  designed 
by  the  genius  of  man.  The  cigarette  restores 
them,  revives  them,  and  enables  them  the  bet- 
ter to  withstand  the  succession  of  shocks  that 
are  imparted  to  their  vessels  by  the  thousand, 
while  every  hour  the  machinery  spins  madly 
to  drive  this  scouting  fleet  through  the  fog- 
shrouded  waters  of  the  English  Channel,  in 
the  black  night  at  the  mouth  of  the  Darda- 
nelles, the  strong  light  of  the  Black  Sea,  or 
the  soft  haze  that  hangs  over  the  historic 
Adriatic. 

To  return,  however,  to  terra  firma.  Once 
more  treading  dry  earth  with  the  warring  ar- 
mies, we  find  there  the  same  devotion  to  the 
cigarette  and  the  same  comfort  derived  from 
it  that  we  find  afloat.  Reference  has  already 
been  made  to  men  smoking  in  the  face  of  death 
ashore  as  well  as  at  sea.  Instances  are  many 


222  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

in  the  present  conflict,  but  one  will  serve.  It 
is  taken  from  the  Chronicle  of  Quebec,  Canada, 
which  published  the  following  in  a  collection  of 
extracts  from  letters  written  by  Canadian 
troopers  at  the  front: 

Sergt.  A.  Bowler  of  the  Fifth  Signal  Troop,  R.  E., 
pays  this  tribute  to  Gen.  Sir  Philip  Chetwode:  "I 
have  watched  him  calmly  smoking  a  cigarette  when 
shells  have  been  dropping  all  over  the  place.  I  think 
that  if  all  the  German  Army  were  firing  at  him  he 
would  carry  on  as  usual,  smoking  his  cigarette  and 
giving  his  orders  as  if  he  were  in  his  club  ordering 
a  drink."* 

These  things  make  men  brothers.  Early  in 
the  war  it  was  no  uncommon  event  at  the 

Western  front  to  see  the  Belgian 
Bond  King,  who  appreciates  the  value 

Between  Qf  c}garettes,  hand  his  to  the  sol- 
c  I1jj*  Q  diers,  and  accept  theirs  in  return. 

He  often  visited  the  trenches, 
where  he  spent  hours  smoking  and  talking 
with  his  men.  But  not  long  after  the  beginning 
of  the  war  the  impoverished  Belgian  people 
could  no  longer  send  tobacco  or  cigarettes  to 
their  fighting  men  and  their  suffering  by  reason 
that  they  had  always  been  great  smokers 
became  intense  from  the  lack  of  tobacco. 
Almost  unanimously  they  appealed  to  the 
Minister  of  War  to  "give  us  worse  food  if  you 
like,  but  let  us  have  tobacco."  Hearing  their 
appeal,  a  movement  known  as  the  Belgian 
Soldiers'  Tobacco  Fund  was  started  in  the 
United  States  and  a  large  sum  of  money  raised 

"Issue  of  March  18,  1915. 


THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR  223 

with  which  to  send  a  continual  supply  of 
fifty  cigarettes  and  some  smoking  tobacco  to 
each  of  the  approximately  200,000  Belgian 
soldiers  as  long  as  the  war  lasted. 

We  have  seen  the  Crown  Prince  of  Ger- 
many smoking  under  fire.  Looking  through 
the  newspaper  files  we  soon  find  a  reversal  of 
the  old  proverb  and  are  tempted  to  say  not 
"like  father,  like  son,"  but  "like  son,  like 
father,"  for  the  Kaiser  seems  to  share  with 
his  heir  the  habit  just  noted  in  one  of  his  gal- 
lant enemies.  A  cable  message  from  London 
to  the  New  York  Times  under  date  of  March 
6, 1915,  says: 

The  Daily  Mail  quotes  the  Hamburger  Nach- 
richten  as  saying  that  when  the  Kaiser  was  on  the 
western  front  he  dropped  his  handkerchief  and 
an  infantryman  picked  it  up.  The  Kaiser  gave 
him  some  cigarettes  and  the  man  said: 

"Thank  you,  your  Majesty."  Thereupon  the 
Kaiser  said : 

"Oh,  you  need  not  call  me  your  Majesty.  Here  you 
can  simply  address  me  as  comrade." 

Another  infantryman  in  the  neighborhood  heard 
this  and  promptly  called: 

"Comrade  Wilhelm,  suppose  you  give  me  some, 
too?" 

The  Kaiser  laughed  and  handed  over  the  rest  of  his 
cigarettes. 

From  the  trenches  in  Northern  France, 
where  the  British  soldiers  find  the  French  to- 
bacco too  strong  for  their  taste,  the  constant 
appeal  of  Tommy  Atkins  to  his  friends  at  home 
has  been  for  "fags,"  as  he  calls  the  Virginia 
cigarette  which  is  so  popular  in  England.  In 


224  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

the  war  hospitals,  his  wounded  fellow- 
countrymen  show  the  same  desire,  for  the 
"fag"  is  the  short  smoke  that  restores  peace 
of  mind  and  calms  the  nerves  in  trying  times. 
Remembering  this,  relatives  send  a  constant 
stream  of  cigarettes  to  the  trenches  and  hos- 
pitals, but  when  it  is  considered  that  millions 
of  men  are  engaged  in  the  struggle,  nobody 
will  be  surprised  to  learn  that  the  supply  is 
inadequate. 

Moreover,  the  need  of  one  army  or  one  navy 
is  the  need  of  all.  The  Germans,  according  to 
a  dispatch  in  the  New  York  Times  of  Decem- 
ber 22,  1914,  ordered  the  people  of  Ghent  to 
furnish,  among  other  things,  1,000,000  ciga- 
rettes for  the  army  occupying  that  town,  for 
Christmas.  A  little  later — in  mid-February, 
in  fact — during  the  coldest  weather  of  that 
cold  winter,  German  soldiers  on  the  western 
front  received  as  regular  daily  rations  two 
cigars  and  two  cigarettes,  or  an  equal  amount 
of  chewing,  snuff  or  pipe  tobacco. 

With  a  like  appreciation  of  the  desires  of  the 
men  in  the  trenches,  the  French  colony  in  Mex- 
ico sent  thirteen  tons  of  cigarettes  to  their 
countrymen  who  were  resisting  invasion  dur- 
ing the  early  stages  of  the  war.  So  great,  in- 
deed, has  become  the  demand  for  cigarettes 
that  the  war  relief  associations  representing 
the  various  belligerent  powers  receive  and  for- 
ward them  to  the  men  on  the  firing  lines  with- 
out expense  to  the  donors. 

So  great  is  the  demand  among  the  men  that 
many  have  written  home  for  cigarette  paper,  in 
order  that  they  may  have  the  "makings,"  util- 


THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR  225 

izing  the  tobacco  distributed  to  them  from  day 
to  day,  preferring  such  cigarettes  in  the 
absence  of  the  better  liked  and  handier 
ready-made  kind,  to  pipes  and  cigars  they  ob- 
tain more  readily. 

On  the  other  hand,  rolling  cigarettes  for  rela- 
tives and  sweethearts  in  the  trenches  is  an  oc- 
cupation engaged  in  by  many  London  society 
women.  They  commenced  their  work  in  order 
that  the  soldiers  might  have  a  plentiful  supply 
for  the  first  Christmas  at  the  front,  in  the  be- 
lief that  the  man  behind  the  gun  would  prefer 
those  fashioned  by  the  women  who  daily 
prayed  for  the  success  of  their  arms  and  the 
safe  return  of  their  dear  ones. 

It  is  not  an  uncommon  sight  to  witness 
women  making  cigarettes  in  the  lounge  rooms 
of  London  hotels,  and  in  many  cases  they 
have  abandoned  knitting,  in  order  to  provide 
for  the  rank  and  file  the  "fag"  so  greatly  ap- 
preciated by  England's  fighters.  These  home- 
made cigarettes  lack  symmetry,  and  do  not  fit 
in  boxes  and  cases  as  do  the  well-known 
American  brands,  but  when  the  latter  cannot 
be  had  these  makeshifts  are  appreciated  by 
the  men  in  the  thick  of  the  fight,  especially  be- 
cause they  are  made  by  tender  hands. 

To  all  the  appeals  of  the  soldiers  for  tobacco 
Americans  have  made  a  more  than  generous 
response.  To  take  but  one  case  in  . 

point,  the  Westchester  County      ^ppea/s  of 
(N.  Y.)  Chapter  of  the  Red  Cross    Me?  on 
Society,   for  the  Irvington   and  ,     T 
Ardsley-on-Hudson  Auxiliary,  is  Lai 
reported  to  have  sent  10,000,000  cigarettes  to 


226  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

the  armies  in  Europe.  Other  associations  in 
various  parts  of  this  country  have  been  quite  as 
liberal.  Scores  of  relief  organizations  joined 
in  the  movement.  People  who  themselves  may 
not  be  partial  to  cigarettes  now  recognize  and 
hasten  to  supply  the  needs  of  the  men  at  the 
battle  fronts,  and  hundreds  of  unknown  indi- 
viduals make  monthly  or  weekly  donations. 
Among  the  most  generous  and  most  frequent 
contributors  to  the  Belgian  Soldiers'  Tobacco 
Fund  mentioned  earlier  were  women  and  girls. 
That  the  governments  constituting  the  Al- 
lied Powers  recognize  the  necesity  of  providing 

tobacco    and    cigarettes    to    the 
Governments  soldiers  on  the  firing  line  is  indi_ 

Pass  Gift*  cated  by  the  official  arrange- 
of  Cigarette*  ments  that  speedily  were  com_ 
Uuty  *  i  pleted  to  pass  all  gifts  of  tobacco, 

including  cigarettes,  to  the  battle  zone  duty 
free.  The  generous  response  of  the  American 
people  to  the  appeal  for  cigarettes  has  resulted 
in  the  forwarding  of  them  by  tens  of  millions. 

The  Over-Seas  Club,  a  British  organization 
with  a  membership  all  over  the  world,  sent 
more  than  100,000,000  cigarettes  and  over  200 
tons  of  pipe  tobacco  to  the  British  and  colonial 
troops  during  the  first  year  of  the  war. 

The  German  Government  recognizes  the 
part  tobacco  plays  in  steadying  the  nerves  of 
the  Imperial  soldiers,  by  the  generous  manner 
in  which  issues  are  made  from  day  to  day, 
while  in  Austria-Hungary  the  soldiers  get  con- 
stant supplies  direct  from  the  Government. 
Germany,  moreover,  admits  free  of  duty  all 
tobacco,  including  cigarettes  intended  for  the 


THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR  227 

soldiers  of  the  fighting-line  and  those  in  the 
hospitals. 

Cigarettes  and  other  forms  of  tobacco  are 
admitted  free  of  duty  into  Turkey,  if  intended 
for  the  soldiers,  when  consigned  to  the 
Ministry  of  War,  the  General  Administration, 
or  the  Turkish  Red  Crescent  at  Constantinople. 
Shipments  of  tobacco  and  cigarettes  intended 
for  soldiers  in  the  Austro-Hungarian  armies 
are  also  admitted  duty  free. 

From  all  this  it  would  seem  as  if  there  could 
no  longer  be  any  lack  of  tobacco  among  the 
troops  at  war.  In  spite  of  all  gifts,  however, 
and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  all  the  Governments 
at  war  have  included  cigarettes  and  other  to- 
bacco in  the  regular  rations  of  the  men,  the 
demand  still  continues  far  to  exceed  the  sup- 
ply. Belgium  has  not  been  able  to  give 
tobacco  to  her  men,  so  the  soldiers  must  de- 
pend on  outside  help  for  their  cigarette  solace. 
The  benefit  derived  from  tobacco  by  soldiers 
in  times  of  great  stress  and  excitement  is  well 
known  among  the  trade  journalists  who  have 
for  half  a  century  been  gathering  statistics  on 
the  subject,  and  in  this  regard  the  comment  of 
The  Tobacco  Leaf,  a  New  York  paper  estab- 
lished fifty  years  ago,  may  be  considered  au- 
thoritative : 

THE  WAR  AND  THE  CIGARETTE 
At  first  blush  it  is  inconceivable  that  there  could 
be  derived  from  the  bloody  conflict  across  the  sea 
any  benefit  to  anyone;  certainly  none  to  the  tobacco 
trade.  Yet  it  can  be  said,  perhaps,  that  this  war  has 
done  more  to  establish  the  reputation  of  cigarette 
smoking  among  the  attributes  of  rugged  masculinity 
than  any  other  conceivable  event. 


228  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Slowly  for  a  decade  past  the  curious  fancy  that  the 
cigarette  was  a  caprice  of  the  small  boy  and  the  dis- 
sipation of  the  dude  has  been  giving  way  to  the  real 
truth,  which  is  quite  contrary. 

But  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  cigarette 
has  fairly  leaped  into  its  legitimate  position  as  the 
smoke  of  manly  men. 

Reporters  on  the  battle  front  describe  how  Sir 
John  French,  British  Commander-in-Chief,  smokes 
cigarettes  throughout  his  busy  day.  Stories  and  pic- 
tures of  "Tommy  Atkins"  reveal  him  with  a  cigarette 
between  his  teeth,  on  the  firing  line. 

A  Red  Cross  Society  has  shipped  10,000,000  ciga- 
rettes to  the  allied  troops  as  "a  measure  of  relief." 
German  soldiers  have  been  depicted  smoking  the 
inevitable  cigarette  while  executing  the  gymnastic 
goose-step.  Robert  Dunn,  war  correspondent  of  the 
New  York  Evening  Post,  tells  how  prisoners  within 
the  Austrian  lines  were  willing  to  trade  their  buttons 
for  cigarettes. 

The  army  aviators  in  the  sky,  the  sharpshooters  in 
the  trees,  the  army  scouts  behind  the  haystacks — 
everybody  in  the  great  struggle,  from  the  crowned 
heads  *of  the  nations  down  to  the  privates  in  the 
trenches — are  shown  as  cigarette  devotees. 

In  fact,  wherever  the  bullets  are  thickest  and 
wherever  the  tasks  are  the  most  dangerous,  cigarettes 
are  seen  pictured  and  reported. 

This  is  no  revelation  to  the  tobacco  trade,  but  to 
the  general  public  it  is  a  convincing  argument  in 
favor  of  the  real  character  and  standing  of  the  little 
paper  rolls. 

The  war  has  done  nothing  to  promote  cigarette 
smoking,  but  the  demand  of  the  public  for  war  news 
and  the  enterprise  of  the  daily  press  in  supplying  it 
have  been  the  means  of  placing  the  cigarette  in  a  new 
and  true  light  before  the  public  eye.* 

*Thc  Tobacco  Leaf.    Issue  of  December  31,  1914. 


THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR  229 

One  more  word  of  the  war  in  Europe  and 
then  we  have  done  with  it.  We  have  already 
seen  how  the  fighting  governments  have  rec- 
ognized the  beneficial  effects  of  the  cigarette. 
It  is  of  high  significance  that,  although  all  of 
those  governments  officially  either  prohibit  or 
discourage  the  use  of  liquor,  they  encourage 
the  use  of  cigarettes,  and  tobacco  in  all  of  its 
other  forms. 

There  has  been,  however,  another  war  rag- 
ing, the  war  in  unhappy  Mexico,  and  there, 
too,  the  cigarette  has  been  prom-  _, 

inent  on  the  firing-line.       John          v  /  *  • 
Reed,  journalist  and  war-corres- 
pondent,    lecturing    before    the          Mexican 
Round  Table  at  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, New  York,  told  of  the  influence  of  a 
cigarette  at  the  battle  of  Torreon,  in  that  con- 
flict.    The  rebels,  under  General  Villa,  had  re- 
peatedly charged  the  federal  stronghold  and 
had  been  repulsed  with  great  loss.  The  position 
of  the  assaulting  party  was  not  advantageous. 
Huerta's  troops  occupied  the  hill,  across  which 
stockades  or  barricades  barred  the  advance  for 
the  Constitutional  army.     Each  advance  was 
swept  back  by  a  storm  of  shell.     At  last  Villa, 
laughing,  said : 

'I'll  lead  the  charge  myself  this  time.  Come 


on." 


Calmly,  he  lit  a  cigarette,  picked  up  a  bomb 
and  started  up  the  hill.  He  turned  his  head, 
inhaled  the  smoke,  blew  it  out  as  coolly  as 
though  conversing  with  a  friend  in  the  patio 
of  his  own  home,  and,  with  his  face  wreathed 
with  the  ingratiating  smile  for  which  he  is 


230  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

noted,  nodded  to  his  men  to  follow  him.  In 
an  instant  the  army  that  had  been  repulsed  so 
many  times  was  at  his  back. 

How  Villa  escaped  death  in  that  storm  of 
shot  and  shell  no  one  knows;  but,  still  laugh- 
ing, talking  and  smoking,  he  walked  steadily 
to  the  fortifications  at  the  top  of  the  hill. 
Huerta's  men,  after  vainly  endeavoring  to  hurl 
back  the  troops,  watched  for  a  moment  the 
rebel  commander  as  though  his  life  were 
charmed,  then  raised  the  cry : 

"Francesco  Villa  is  coming!" 

An  instant  later,  Villa,  applying  the  light  of 
his  cigarette  to  the  fuse  of  his  bomb,  held  it 
until  it  burned  close  to  the  shell  and  then,  toss- 
ing it  over  the  wall,  at  the  head  of  his  men  led 
the  charge  that  resulted  in  the  capture  of  Tor- 
reon  and  the  utter  defeat  of  the  federal  forces 
in  the  battle  that  opened  the  way  to  Mexico 
City. 

It  was  the  most  important  conflict  of  the 
revolution,  and  the  sight  of  the  rebel  chieftain 
contentedly  smoking  a  cigarette  while  shells 
were  bursting  about  his  head,  was  what  turned 
defeat  into  victory  at  a  moment  when  the 
spirits  of  the  Constitutionalists  were  at  lowest 
ebb.  Villa,  who  is  nothing  if  not  a  student  of 
human  nature,  planned  the  simple  expedient 
of  bringing  the  cigarette  into  play  at  the  last 
moment — staked  all  on  it — and  won  the  most 
decisive  victory  of  that  war. 

In  both  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United 
States  tobacco  has  always  been  officially  rec- 
ognized as  a  necessity  for  the  men  in  the 
service;  and  ever  since,  back  in  the  sixties, 


Copyright  International  Film  Service         Copyright  American  Press  Association 
DUCA   DEGLI   ABRUZZI    AND    MAJOR   GENERAL    GOETHALS 

Duca  degli  Abruzzi,  noted  explorer  and  Commanding  Admiral  of  the 
Italian  Navy,  prefers  the  cigarette  as  a  form  of  smoking.  The  famous 
United  States  Army  engineer  whose  genius  is  responsible  for  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Panama  Canal  and  made  him  Governor  of  the  Canal  Zone, 
is  an  almost  constant  smoker  of  cigarettes. 


THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR  231 

the  manufacture  of  cigarettes  began  in  this 
country,  they  have  been  supplied  to  our 
soldiers  and  sailors  alike. 

Indeed,  the  cigarette  may  be  said  to  be  the 
favorite  form  of  smoking  of  both  officers  and 
the  men  under  them,  and  it  is  _ 

considered  as  necessary  as  flour          favorite 
j   or  any  other  staple  supply  to  the         ~*         in 
commissariat  and  canteen  of  all       Army  an 
barracks  in  all  army  headquarters  Navy 

and  on  all  ships  in  the  navy.  At  every  offi- 
cers' mess  on  land  and  sea  the  cigarette  is  en- 
joyed. 

Men  grow  gray  and  grizzled  in  the  service, 
still  clinging  to  the  cigarette  of  their  cadet 
days  in  West  Point  or  Annapolis,  and  it  is  a 
well-known  fact  that  no  men  age  more  slowly 
or  more  sturdily  than  the  cigarette  smokers 
in  our  fighting  forces,  which  perhaps  may  be 
considered  food  for  reflection  by  anti-cigarette 
crusaders  whose  stock  argument  is  that  the 
smokers  of  cigarettes  die  young. 

Even  in  the  construction  of  the  Panama 
Canal,  under  the  supervision  of  our  War  De- 
partment, the  cigarette  played  its  part.  Not 
only  is  General  Goethals  an  habitual  user  of 
cigarettes,  but  he  recognized  their  usefulness 
as  a  comfort  to  men  under  him,  and  their 
necessity  in  maintaining  efficiency.  The  Gov- 
ernment laid  down  rigid  rules  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  health  of  the  canal  workers,  and 
cigarettes  were  a  part  of  the  regular  supplies. 

Japan  goes  even  further  in  this  particular. 
Its  Government  is  famous  for  the  care  that  it 
takes  of  its  soldiers,  and  for  the  brilliant  re- 


) 
232  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

suits  of  that  care.  The  men  of  the  Japanese 
army  are  accounted  physically  the  best  soldiers 
in  the  world,  yet  the  Government  makes 
cigarettes  a  part  of  their  regular  rations  in 
times  of  peace  as  well  as  in  times  of  war. 

In  fact,  the  cigarette  is  now  recognized  as 
a  necessary  supply  in  the  armies  and  navies  of 
all  the  great  powers  on  earth.  Finally,  the 
cigarette  in  the  present  European  war  has,  as 
I  said  a  short  time  since,  brought  about  a  re- 
markable change  in  the  attitude  of  many 
minds.  Whereas  we  were  inclined  to  look 
upon  it  heretofore  simply  as  a  luxury  and  com- 
fort to  men  of  high  and  low  stations  alike,  this 
conflict  has  revealed  it  in  the  light  of  an  actual 
necessity. 

However,  it  is  not  only  in  war  or  among  men 
of  war  that  the  cigarette  nerves  men  who  face 
C  f  great  danger.  One  notable  and 

*  71  °/  L  tragic  instance  was  in  the  sinking 

?  5S55-T-  »  of  the  Titanic  in  mid-Atlantic. 
tor  It  tame  Jt  wm  be  remembered  that  the 

members  of  the  crew,  down  to 
and  including  the  bellboys,  remained  at  their 
posts  of  duty  until  the  boats  had  put  off  and 
the  order  was  given  for  every  man  to  take  care 
of  himself. 

Probably  all  of  those  who  were  left  on  the 
fated  ship  knew  they  were  soon  to  drown.  It 
was  a  moment  when,  ordinarily,  a  horrid  panic 
might  be  expected.  But  nothing  of  that  sort 
happened  on  the  Titanic.  The  little  bell- 
boys, at  the  word  of  command,  darted  about 
the  sinking  liner  among  the  passengers  for 
whom  there  was  not  room  in  the  lifeboats,  and 


THE  CIGARETTE  IN  WAR  233 

lighted  their  cigarettes,  which  were  straight- 
way puffed  with  a  reckless  disregard  for  death. 
The  engineers  and  the  stokers  clambering  up- 
ward witnessed  this  remarkable  spectacle 
when  they  reached  the  upper  deck,  while  pas- 
sengers in  the  boats  that  were  pulling  away 
to  get  beyond  the  suction  of  the  great  vessel 
when  it  made  its  final  lurch  looked  back  in 
'amazement. 

As  it  was  on  the  Titanic,  to  it  was  in  the 
days  of  our  Wild  West  with  the  cowboy  who 
maintained  life  and  law  and  order  on  the  fron- 
tier when  the  Indian  was  a  disturbing  factor, 
or  when  organized  bands  of  cattle  thieves 
raided  the  ranges.  Then  as  now,  a  case  of 
"nerves"  was  effectively  controlled  by  the 
lighting  of  a  cigarette,  which  was  serenely 
puffed  while  keeping  a  watchful  eye  for  an 
enemy. 

In  any  time  of  great  danger,  distress  or  dif- 
ficulty, when  disastrous  results  seem  inevita- 
ble, it  is  not  unusual  for  a  man  to  light  a  ciga- 
rette, from  the  smoking  of  which  he  regains 
that  calm  and  self-poise  that  enable  him  to 
arouse  the  determination  necessary  to  record 
victory — be  it  in  the  business  of  peace  or  the 
business  of  war — where,  a  moment  since  de- 
feat has  seemed  a  certainty. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH 

Inborn  Desire  in  Every  Male  Human  Being  to  Smoke  Some- 
thing— The   Matter   of   Inhaling  Smoke — One   Good 
Reason  Why  Boys  Should  Not  Smoke — Mistake 
to  Link  Crime  with  Cigarettes. 

I  DO  not  believe  that  growing  boys — or  girls 
either — should  use  tobacco  in  any  form. 
To  say  that  tobacco  in  moderation  is  ben- 
eficial to  the  average  mature  man — and  to  say 
that  the  cigarette  is  the  best  form  in  which 
tobacco  can  be  used — is  one  thing.  To  ad- 
vocate the  use  of  tobacco  by  children  is  quite 
another. 

Just  as  there  are  certain  foods  which,  though 
necessary  to  the  physical  economy  of  the 
adult,  are  properly  denied  to  the  small  boy  or 
girl,  so  there  are  other  substances  helpful  to 
the  grown  person  which,  properly,  should  be 
forbidden  the  person  whose  growth  has  not 
yet  been  attained.  Among  these  latter,  I,  for 
my  part,  place  tobacco. 

My  own  boy  has  now  reached  the  age  when 
lasting  habits  are  easily  formed.  That  is  the 
age  when  there  naturally  arises  in  him  the 
desire  to  imitate  his  elders  by  smoking.  Real- 
izing this,  I  persistently  urge  him,  as  well  as  all 
other  lads  over  whom  I  believe  I  may  have 
some  influence,  to  refrain  from  the  use  of  to- 
bacco during  their  tender  years,  and  quite  as 
persistently — and  for  the  same  reason — do  I 
advise  them  to  refrain,  for  the  same  period, 

234 


THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH  235 

from  too  much  meat  and  from  the  use  of 
strong  spices,  cocoa,  tea  and  coffee. 

Although  I  have  long  been  a  smoker — first 
of  cigars,  then  of  pipes  and  latterly  of  ciga- 
rettes— I  have  never  lost  this  feeling  that  it  is 
not  the  part  of  wisdom  for  a  growing  boy  to 
smoke.  Perhaps  I  am  thus  inclined  because 
I  myself,  despite  all  the  contrary  temptations 
of  school  and  early  college  days,  refrained 
from  smoking  tobacco  until  I  was  twenty-one. 
That  is  not  self-laudation:  it  is  the  result  of 
training,  for  the  belief  that  it  is  bad  for  boys 
to  smoke  was  handed  down  to  me  by  preced- 
ing generations,  from  forebears  none  of  whom, 
so  far  as  I  can  recall,  ever  used  tobacco  in 
any  form. 

There  was,  in  my  case,  an  especial  ban 
placed  upon  the  tobacco  cigarettes,  and  so  I 
did  not  smoke  them;  yet — and  this  I  write  in 
no  trivial  mood,  but  as  a  serious  statement 
bearing  upon  the  broad  subject  in  hand — I 
hasten  to  record  that  I  did  smoke  corn-silk, 
dried  apple-leaves,  cubebs,  pennyroyal,  rat- 
tan, and  pieces  of  grape-vine. 

I  say  that  I  make  this  confession  seriously, 
for  smoking  by  boys— or  rather  the  sort  of 
smoking  that  they  do — is  a  seri- 
ous matter.    It  would  seem  that  ln. 
there  is  in  every  male  human  be-         £>««" 
ing  an  inborn  desire  to  smoke       c     *m°kt 
something,  a  desire  that  in  most 
of  us  manifests  itself  at  a  very  tender  age.    I 
believe  that  few  normal  boys  ever  grow  to 
maturity  without  smoking  some  substance,  or 
trying  to  do  so,  and  therefore  the  kind  of 


236  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

smoking  that  a  boy  first  indulges  in  is  of  no 
small  importance. 

If  this  is  correct,  there  is  at  least  one  thing 
to  be  said  in  favor  of  the  boy's  corn-silk  or 
apple-leaves  as  opposed  to  the  tobacco  ciga- 
rette :  it  is  more  than  doubtful  if  any  lad  ever 
contracted  the  habit  of  smoking  them. 

Therein,  it  seems  to  me,  is  one  of  the  best 
arguments  in  favor  of  delaying  tobacco  smok- 
ing until  maturity,  for  the  tobacco  habit  is  eas- 
ily formed,  and  the  fragrant  "smoke"  is  more 
apt  to  be  indulged  in  to  excess  by  the  youth 
than  by  men  that  are  fully  grown. 

Although  there  is  not  an  authentic  case  on 
record  where  rational  smoking  injured  any- 
one, it  is,  as  we  saw  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
a  recognized  fact  that  excessive  smoking  is 
unwise,  and  boys,  whether  from  bravado  or 
some  other  cause,  are  very  apt  to  fall  into 
excessive  smoking,  when  once  they  have 
begun  to  smoke. 

I  have  said  that  I  first  smoked  cigars,  then 
pipes,  and  lastly  cigarettes.  This  record  of 
a  rather  unusual  succession  of  the  forms  of 
smoking  may  be  misleading.  Some  of  the  un- 
thinking anti-cigarette  crusaders  might  even 
seize  upon  it  as  proof  that  the  cigarette  is  the 
only  thing  strong  enough  to  take  the  place 
of  the  pipe,  whereas,  as  we  now  know,  ciga- 
rettes are  really  the  mildest  form  in  which  to- 
bacco is  used. 

I  therefore  hasten  to  say  that,  personally, 
I  do  not  place  credence  in  the  popular  belief 
about  a  confirmed  tobacco  habit,  and  that  it 


THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH  237 

has  never  been  a  hardship  for  me  to  stop  smok- 
ing when,  or  as  long  as,  I  pleased. 

Now,  since  practically  all  the  best  author- 
ities agree  that  cigarettes  are  the  mildest  and 
least  harmful  form  of  smoking,  my  experience 
certainly  belies  the  belief  that  smoking  en- 
genders a  craving  that  calls  for  increasing 
strength  of  tobacco ;  for,  whereas  I  began  with 
the  strongest  forms,  I  have  come  to  abide  by 
the  weakest.  I  get  all  of  the  comfort  I  desire 
through  this  mildest  form  of  smoking,  and  I 
get  it  without  inhaling. 

This  brings  me  back  to  the  question  of 
tobacco  and  the  youth.    This  matter  of  in- 
haling is  another  of  the   good 
reasons  why  young  boys  should  f 

not  smoke.  They  are  too  apt  to  Matter  of 
inhale  to  excess  because  they  Inhaling 
think  it  is  "smart,"  whereas  one 
who  begins  smoking  after  maturity  learns 
more  rationally,  and  if  he  does  inhale  is  not 
so  likely  to  do  it  excessively. 

To  repeat,  then,  I  am  opposed  to  smoking 
on  the  part  of  growing  boys.  Being  so 
minded,  I  have  tried  hard  to  record  argu- 
ments showing  why  cigarette  smoking  is  bad 
for  youths.  But,  although  -I  believe  my  posi- 
tion to  be  the  correct  one,  I  have  frankly  to 
admit  that  my  search  for  evidence  has  been 
difficult. 

In  seeking  concrete  information  that  would 
enable  me  clearly  and  forcefully  to  make  my 
point,  I  read  in  vain  the  works  of  supposed 
authorities.  Honestly  I  sought  for  enlight- 
ening facts,  but  found  only  platitudes — vol- 


238  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

umes  of  platitudes.  It  is  the  iteration  and  re- 
iteration of  extravagant  and  unsubstantiated 
statements  that  is  the  weakness — and  not,  as 
they  seem  to  suppose,  the  strength — of  the 
superficial  anti-cigarette  crusaders. 

First  of  all,  I,  of  course,  encountered  the 
stereotyped  statement  of  the  school  physi- 
ology to  the  effect  that  smoking  stunts 
growth,  and  this  I  immediately  found  ques- 
tioned by  many  of  the  best  physicians.  Then 
I  thought  that  I  surely  had  found  something 
that  would  throw  light  on  the  subject  when, 
after  much  trouble,  I  located  a  little  book  en- 
titled Why  Boys  Should  Not  Smoke,  by 
Thomas  Cartwright,  B.  A.,  B.  Sc.  (London), 
with  a  commendatory  letter  by  Major  General 
Baden-Powell;  but  here  was  only  another  dis- 
appointment. 

The  book  proved  to  be  another  volume  of 
platitudinous  and  very  extravagant  state- 
ments, evidently  designed  to  scare  boys  away 
from  smoking,  rather  than  to  give  them  any 
definite,  well  founded  reasons  why  they 
should  not  smoke,  and  thus  make  the  book 
live  up  to  the  promise  of  its  title.  Yet  the  pre- 
face in  this  work  states  that  it  was  designed 
as  a  supplementary  reader  in  all  schools! 
Because  the  book  is  typical  of  many  I  shall 
quote  a  few  paragraphs: 

Look  at  the  sallow  face  and  the  lean  and  stunted 
figure  of  the  young  man,  who  when  a  boy,  was  a  cig- 
arette smoker.  He  is  like  a  broken  down  old  man.  If 
he  looks  down  from  a  height  he  becomes  dizzy.  And 
how  stooped  and  lazy  he  is.  He  seems  a  regular 
loafer.  The  least  thing  makes  his  limbs  tremble  and 


THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH  239 

his  heart  beat.    Such  is  the  evil  work  of  the  cigarette 
upon  the  tender  frame  of  growing  lads. 

Yes,  boys,  I  repeat  it,  the  deadly  cigarette  is  your 
worst  enemy,  and  the  worst  enemy  of  the  country; 
and  you  who  smoke  it  will  help  this  enemy  to  ruin 
the  British  Empire  by  making  its  future  men  pigmy 
dwarfs  with  little  bodily  strength  and  even  less 
strength  of  mind. 

The  author  then  tells  how  in  one  hundred 
years  the  average  height  of  a  Briton  fyas  fal- 
len from  five  feet  ten  inches  ("/.  e.  nearly  six 
feet")  to  five  feet  five  inches,  and  continues: 

That  is  what  the  cigarette,  smoked  by  foolish  boys 
has  done,  and  is  doing  for  our  race.  I  say  this  be- 
cause a  century  ago  the  boy  smoker  was  unknown, 
and  because  doctors  agree  that  one  of  the  chief  rea- 
sons, if  not  the  chief  reason  of  this  falling  off  in 
strength,  is  the  deadly  cigarette  in  the  mouths  of 
foolish  lads. 

If  you  really  wish  to  grow  up  strong  and  hardy  you 
must  shun  tobacco  as  you  would  shun  the  plague; 
for  it  will  make  you  thin,  stunted,  pale,  cross,  lazy 
and  dull.  If  you  smoke  you  cannot  grow. 

Now,  although  I  commend  the  cause  that 
Dr.  Cartwright  espouses,  I  must  submit  that 
such  statements  are  hardly  the        c 
kind   of   "arguments"   that   can       Sta'"r*° 
make  a  book  live  up  to  the  title  ^  ,-r5 

Why  Boys  Should  Not  Smoke.      - 
The  soldiers  who  first  took  up      Si 
arms  for  the  British  Empire  in  the  latest  war 
are  reported  to  be,  almost  to  a  man,  over  five 
feet  ten  inches  in  height,  and  one  of  the  surpris- 
ing revelations  of  the  war  is  that,  almost  to  a 
man,  they  are,  and  have  been  from  boyhood  or 
early  manhood,  habitual  cigarette  smokers. 


240  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

The  same  awkward  contradiction  of  facts 
is  found  in  the  true  state  of  the  German  army 
as  opposed  to  what  good  Dr.  Cartwright  says 
about  Teutonic  manhood.  "In  Germany,"  he 
declares,  "it  used  to  be  said  that  one  half  of 
their  young  fellows  who  died  before  arriving 
at  manhood  were  killed  either  wholly  or  in 
part  by  smoking." 

It  would  seem,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  these 
young  men  were  killed  only  "in  part,"  for  the 
flower  of  robust  German  manhood  has  been 
doing  some  terrific  fighting  for  the  Fatherland 
and  reports  from  the  battle-front  show  that 
the  cigarette,  or  some  form  of  smoking,  is 
considered  as  necessary  to  their  physical  wel- 
fare and  bravery  as  is  food  itself. 

But  the  subject  of  the  cigarette  in  warfare 
is  treated  in  another  chapter.  (What  I  have 
here  to  note  is  that  such  statements  as  those 
made  by  Dr.  Cartwright  fail  as  arguments 
when  it  is  known  that  in  the  class  he  condemns 
are  not  only  the  soldiers  of  England,  but  also 
many  of  her  prominent  statesmen,  business- 
men and  scholars. 

If  Dr.  Cartwright  is  correct,  then  these 
eminent  figures  are  among  those  "sallow 
faced,  lean,  stunted"  men;  they  are  of  the  type 
that,  according  to  this  author,  "has  no  pluck" ; 
they  are  the  kind  of  man  who,  again  accord- 
ing to  him,  is  so  weak  that  "the  least  thing 
makes  his  limbs  tremble  and  his  heart  beat" ; 
they  are  all  this  because  they  have  smoked 
cigarettes  in  their  young  days — and  still 
smoke  them.  England  is  notoriously  a  ciga- 
rette-smoking country,  and  one  that  discrim- 


THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH  241 

inates  as  to  quality,  for  the  American  tobacco 
cigarette,  which  is  known  there  as  "Virginia," 
is  the  prevailing  smoke. 

I  say  that  I  sought  earnestly  for  convincing 
facts  in  this  book  with  the  promising  title. 
When  it  failed  me  in  one  chapter  I  continued 
to  hope  for  the  next,  and  I  was  quite  positive 
that  I  should  discover  what  I  sought  when  I 
came  to  the  sections  devoted  to  physiology. 
There,  too,  however,  I  was  doomed  to  disap- 
pointment. Instead  of  reliable  scientific 
statements,  I  found  only  such  absurdities  as 
these: 

Action  of  Tobacco:  If  you  count  the  beats  of  the 
pulse  which,  of  course,  depend  upon  the  beats  of  the 
heart,  you  will  find  that  there  are  74  beats  a  minute. 
Tobacco  injures  the  heart  by  making  it  beat  much 
faster  than  this,  nearly  as  much  as  112  beats  a  minute. 
Thus  the  heart  is  greatly  over-worked  and  is  likely  to 
become  diseased,  as  is  very  often  the  case.  After  a 
time  this  great  strain  brings  about  a  reaction,  and 
the  over-worked  heart  beats  slowly  and  feebly,  and 
sometimes  stops  altogether. 

Test  this  author  for  yourself  by  comparing 
what  he  says  about  "poison"  in  tobacco  with 
what,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  earlier  chapters 
of  this  book,  science  has  demonstrated  as  the 
facts.  Says  Dr.  Cartwright: 

An  oily  substance  with  a  long  name  that  I  will  not 
trouble  you  with,  and  which  is  so  very  poisonous  that 
a  drop  placed  upon  the  tongue  of  a  snake  kills  it  at 
once.  Yet  there  are  no  less  than  sixteen  drops  of  this 
poison  in  an  ounce  of  tobacco. 

Now,  everybody  knows  that  tobacco  is  one 
of  the  few  products  of  nature  almost  every- 


242  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

where  used  among  mankind,  one  of  the  prod- 
ucts the  consumption  of  which  keeps  pace 
with  growing  civilization.  It  is  being  con- 
sumed in  ever  increasing  quantities  amount- 
ing to  hundreds  of  millions  of  pounds  a  year. 
If  these  remarks  about  its  effects  on  the  hu- 
man body  are  correct,  is  it  not  a  miracle  that 
the  human  race  —  to  say  nothing  about  ad- 
vancing in  physical  strength,  in  mentality  and 
morality  —  has  at  all  survived? 

We  have  already  had  —  and  shall  probably 
have  again  —  frequent  occasion  to  call  atten- 
tion to  and  confute  such  snap  judgments  and 
unfounded  declarations  as  those  of  Dr.  Cart- 
wright  ;  but,  there  comes  to  mind  at  this  point 
one  particularly  glaring  instance  of  false 
deduction  that  may  well  be  placed  beside 
those  of  the  author  of  Why  Boys  Should  Not 
Smoke. 

This  instance  is  to  be  found  in  the  report 
of  an  experiment  made  by  Dr.  David  Paulson, 
......  later  President  of  the  Anti-Ciga- 

rette  League  of  America,  while 


AT*L-*    he  was  a  student  at  the  Bellevue 
Nothing  but    Hospital  Medical  School.    It  is 

a  report  which  has  stood  for  a 
long  time  as  a  sort  of  standard  among  the 
enemies  of  the  cigarette.  Dr.  Paulson  tells 
how  he  soaked  tobacco  in  water  and  injected 
a  hypodermic  syringeful  of  the  tobacco  juice 
under  the  cat's  skin.  He  describes  the  suffer- 
ing of  the  poor  cat,  and  its  death,  in  less  than 
twenty  minutes,  from  violent  convulsions. 

Aside  from  the  cruelties  that  they  perform, 
such  experimenters  are  simply  patently  un- 


THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH  243 

scientific.  They  are  not  dishonest;  they 
really  do  not  realize  the  difference  between 
injecting  nicotine  into  the  blood  of  snakes, 
cats,  frogs  and  other  beings  of  a  lower  order, 
and  the  action  of  tobacco  as  used  by  normal 
human  beings,  whose  systems  are  very  soon 
made  immune  to  the  small  amount  of  nicotine 
that  is  present  in  smoking  tobacco,  and  that  is 
especially  minute  in  the  case  of  cigarettes. 

As  the  matter  is  expressed  by  one  promi- 
nent physician  of  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
a  man  who  has  given  a  great  deal  of  time  to 
the  study  of  tobacco  effects :  "To  make  their 
experiments  logical  the  anti-tobacco  pseudo- 
scientists  should  choose  as  their  victims  ani- 
mals that  have  been  immunized.  If  they  ever 
do  so,  it  is  quite  certain  that  they  will  find  that 
nicotine,  in  small  doses,  has  practically  no 
effect  whatever." 

From  the  experiment  of  Dr.  Paulson,  and 
other  similar  ones,  it  will  be  seen  that  we 
have  in  this  country  critics  of  the  cigarette 
who  are  quite  as  intemperate  and  platitudin- 
ous in  their  statements  as  is  Dr.  Cartwright. 
Another  instance  is,  however,  worth  citing 
here  and  now.  It  is  to  be  found  in  a  little 
booklet  published  by  a  well-known  American 
automobile  manufacturer  and  gratuitously 
distributed  broadcast.  Therein  Mr.  Hudson 
Maxim,  inventor  of  many  things,  including 
smokeless  powder,  has  remarked: 

The  wreath  of  cigarette  smoke  which  curls  about 
the  head  of  the  growing  lad  holds  his  brain  in  an  iron 
grip  which  prevents  it  from  growing  and  his  mind 


244  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

from  developing  just  as  surely  as  the  iron  shoe  does 
the  foot  of  the  Chinese  girl.   *  *  * 

If  all  boys  could  be  made  to  know  that  with  every 
breath  of  cigarette  smoke  they  inhale  imbecility  and 
exhale  manhood ;  that  they  are  tapping  their  arteries 
as  surely  and  letting  their  life's  blood  out  as  truly  as 
though  their  veins  and  arteries  were  severed,  and  that 
the  cigarette  is  a  maker  of  invalids,  criminals  and 
fools — not  men — it  ought  to  deter  them  some.  The 
yellow  finger  stain  is  an  emblem  of  deeper  degrada- 
tion and  enslavement  than  the  ball  and  chain. 

Those  utterances  are  under  the  department 
heading  "Some  Scientific  Facts."  One  won- 
ders why !  They  are  simply  resounding  state- 
ments with  no  semblance  of  proof  behind 
them. 

My  search  for  authoritative  opinions,  based 
on  sound  reasons,  as  to  why  the  use  of  tobacco 
should  be  postponed  until  maturity  is  reached, 
was  not,  however,  without  some  more  or  less 
satisfactory  results.  I  did  find  that,  luckily, 
there  are  investigators  much  more  scientific, 
and  therefore  much  more  temperate,  than  Dr. 
Cartwright,  Dr.  Paulson  and  Mr.  Maxim. 

This  better  class  of  investigator  throws 
some  real  light  on  the  subject.  There  is,  for 
instance,  Professor  Alfred  A.  Woodhull,  of 
Princeton  University,  who  in  an  article  in 
American  Health,  says: 

Example  commonly  leads  to  the  first  use  of  tobac- 
co, and  example  is  very  strong  with  youth,  especially 
youth  without,  or  defiant  of  judicious  control.  Pri- 
marily, tobacco  is  physiologically  offensive:  but  tol- 
eration, a  peculiarity  of  the  nervous  system,  is  estab- 


THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH  245 

lished  sooner  or  later.  Following  toleration  its  use 
gives  satisfaction  to  nearly  all,  and  this  in  most  cases 
increases  to  desire  and,  in  succession,  to  a  demand 
which  with  many  becomes  a  positive  craving,  insist- 
ent upon  gratification.  In  the  young  the  nervous  bal- 
ance is  more  easily  disturbed  and  the  consequences 
of  such  disturbance  are  more  conspicuous  than  with 
the  mature. 

An  exceedingly  rational  view  is  given  by 
J.  H.  Tilden,  M.  D.,  of  Denver,  whose  writ- 
ings bring  the  responsibility  for  the  ciga- 
rette boy  forcefully  to  the  door  of  the  parents, 
where,  of  course,  in  most  cases  it  quite  rightly 
belongs.  He  says: 

Just  how  much  harm  is  being  done  to  the  human 
race  by  cigarette  smoking  is  hard  to  say,  but  the  cig- 
arette is  not  altogether  to  blame.  Show  me  a  child 
that  has  been  raised  normally — fed  properly,  kept 
away  from  coffee,  tea,  chocolate,  cocoa,  and  given  no 
meat  until  five  or  six  years  of  age,  and  then  very  little ; 
fed  good  wholesome  food;  that  has  slept  in  a  well- 
aired  bedroom;  that  has  been  taught  to  obey,  to  have 
some  self-discipline,  to  know  domestic  authority — 
and  I  will  show  you  a  child  that  will  not  take  to  cig- 
arettes or  to  any  other  form  of  tobacco. 

The  tobacco  habit  is  one  of  the  legitimate  cravings 
of  a  degenerated  hunger — it  is  the  normal  demand 
made  by  a  diseased  nervous  system.  This  is  so  true 
that  it  ought  to  be  common  knowledge.  The  ciga- 
rette per  se  is  not  harmful,  for  a  normal  child  would 
not  put  it  in  his  mouth,  and,  if  it  did,  it  would  throw 
it  out  very  quickly.  Mothers  and  fathers  and  society 
generally  need  to  know  the  importance  of  having 
children  reared  right  as  regards  food  and  all  environ- 
ments, and  then  we  will  not  need  prohibition  to  pro- 
tect us  from  alcoholics,  tobacco  and  the  slum  life. 


246  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Dr.  Tilden  also  points  out  that  the  problem 
of  the  boy  and  the  cigarette  may  be  ap- 
proached from  either  of  two  directions — de- 
mand or  supply.  He  maintains  that  it  is  a 
good  thing  to  prevent  the  demand  in  juve- 
niles, and  that  a  cigarette  would  have  no  at- 
traction for  a  boy,  be  no  temptation  to  him,  if 
he  had  always  been  properly  fed  and  well 
trained. 

Furthermore,  he  states  a  truth  that  should 
be  an  incentive  to  all  boys  who  are  sensible 
enough  to  realize  that  it  is  wise  to  wait  pa- 
tiently until  the  proper  time  for  the  best 
things  in  life.  This  statement  is  that  "the 
best  satisfied  smokers  are  those  who  began 
after  maturity." 

There  is,  however,  another  phase  of  this 
matter.  I  mean  the  economic  phase,  and  in  it 
.  I  find  one  very  good  reason  why 
One  Good  youths  should  not  smoke  ciga- 
ReasonWhy  retteS4  jt  is,  moreover,  a  reason 
Boys  Should  that  ig  far  more  easily  proved 

than  any  based  on  physiology 
or  morality.  Here  it  is:  So  deep-seated  has 
become  the  prejudice  against  the  cigarette- 
smoking  boy  that  a  large  number  of  business 
men  either  do  not  employ  or  else  openly  dis- 
criminate against  boys  who  smoke. 

While  this  prejudice  is  by  no  means  gen- 
eral, it  has  become  apparent  in  many  places, 
especially  where  crusades  against  juvenile 
smoking  have  been  conducted.  Why  should 
any  boy,  whose  enjoyment  of  smoking  will 
become  keener  if  he  awaits  maturity,  jeopar- 


THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH  247 

dize  employment  or  promotion  because  of  a 
desire  to  smoke? 

Nor  is  it  on  the  economic  side  alone  that  we 
find  our  most  legitimate  arguments  against 
the  use  of  tobacco  by  the  youth.  Even  the 
best  friend  of  the  cigarette  will  admit  that 
there  is  a  moral  phase  to  the  question,  al- 
though he  will  be  equally  honest  in  pointing 
out  that  this  phase  is  by  no  means  as  serious 
as  the  unknowing  critics  would  lead  us  to 
believe. 

If  our  social  system  were  similar  to  that  in 
Latin-American  countries,  or  in  some  ad- 
vanced European  countries,  where  cigarette 
smoking  is  taken  as  a  matter  of  course  by  both 
men  and  women,  we  should  have  no  juvenile 
cigarette  problem;  but  here  in  the  United 
States  the  youth  is  more  than  likely  to  smoke 
surreptitiously.  More  often  than  not  he  does 
his  smoking  away  from  home  and  keeps  from 
his  parents  the  fact  that  he  is  smoking.  This 
is  deception,  and  deception  weakens  char- 
acter. 

Such  a  statement  nobody  will  deny.  Never- 
theless, the  worst  that  can,  in  this  phase  of 
the  matter,  be  said  against  the  cigarette  is 
that  it  is  one  of  the  things  about  which  a  boy 
may  lie  to  his  parents.  It  is  only  a  single 
example  of  a  good  many  things  about  which 
he  is  prone  to  practise  deception.  There  are 
many  phases  of  American  life  that  lead  to 
deception  by  the  young.  To  say,  therefore, 
that  the  cigarette  in  itself  makes  a  good  boy 
bad  is  as  absurd  as  it  would  be  to  say  that  it 
makes  a  bad  boy  good. 


248  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Since  deception  is  one  of  the  tendencies 

sure  to  be  found  in  boys  already  inherently 

bad,  it  follows  that  such  boys  are 

Mistake  to       not  infrequently  smokers.     Be- 

'ththime  Cause  °f  their  inherent  bad~ 
^f  *"'  ness — and  obviously  not  be- 
Cigarette  r  . ,  i  • 

cause  or  the  smoking — they  are 

likely  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  law.  There- 
upon the  opponents  of  tobacco  issue  gro- 
tesque statements  concerning  the  number  of 
cigarette  smokers  among  youthful  offenders 
and  ask  us  to  believe  that  there  is  a  direct  re- 
lation between  the  cigarette  and  delinquency, 
or  incorrigibility. 

This  is  all  very  well,  but  the  fact  is  that  the 
high  percentage  of  cigarette  smokers  among 
juvenile  offenders,  as  reported,  is  strikingly 
at  variance  with  the  percentage  as  found — 
by  the  men  that  have  the  best  opportunities 
to  study  them — among  the  street  children 
from  whose  ranks  such  offenders  are  recruited. 

For  an  example  of  the  discrepancy  here 
evident,  we  need  go  no  further  than  to  Judge 
Benjamin  Lindsay  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
the  principal  of  a  New  York  East  Side  public 
school  on  the  other.  Judge  Lindsay,  as  head 
of  the  Denver  Juvenile  Court,  has  performed 
a  wonderful  social  service,  but  he  is  an  enemy 
of  the  cigarette.  The  school  principal  is  not 
on  record  as  for  or  against  the  cigarette,  but 
has  under  his  care  children  of  that  class  which 
produces  the  vast  majority  of  incorrigibles 
and  youthful  gangsters.  In  the  automobile 


THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH  249 

manufacturer's  booklet  already  referred  to  we 
find  Judge  Lindsay  declaring: 

One  of  the  very  worst  habits  of  boyhood  is  the 
"cigarette  habit.  This  has  long  been  recognized  by  all 
the  judges  of  the  courts  who  deal  with  young  crim- 
inals, and  especially  by  judges  of  police  courts,  before 
whom  pass  thousands  of  men  every  year  who  are 
addicted  to  intemperate  habits  *  v  •*,.-*  One  bad 
habit  led  to  another  *  *  *  The  cigarette  habit 
not  only  had  a  grip  upon  them  in  boyhood,  but  it  in- 
vited all  the  other  demons  of  habit  to  come  in  and 
add  to  the  degradation  that  the  cigarette  began. 

On  the  other  hand,  our  East  Side  school 
principal  as  decided^  remarks  that  the  per- 
centage of  cigarette  smokers  among  the  East 
Side  boys  is  very  small;  that  among  those 
with  whom  he  comes  into  contact  it  is,  ac- 
cording to  his  observation,  less,  indeed,  than 
one  per  cent.  He  says  that  there  are  so  few 
cases  of  cigarette  smoking  in  his  school  that 
the  cigarette  never  has  been  a  problem  there. 
Yet  it  is  on  such  children  as  he  has  charge 
of  that  the  juvenile  courts  most  heavily  draw. 

When  two  such  authorities  so  pointedly 
disagree,  who  is  to  decide?  Nobody  doubts 
Judge  Lindsay's  word,  but  then  nobody 
will  doubt  the  word  of  the  East  Side  school 
principal.  There  is  only  one  way  in  which  to 
determine  the  matter.  That  is  to  remember 
that  the  crusader  is  so  mentally  constituted 
that  he  always  finds  what  he  is  looking  for 
and  then  to  remember  that  Judge  Lindsay  is 
a  crusader,  whereas  the  school  principal  is 
without  prejudice.  There  is  probably  a  great 
deal  less  cigarette  smoking  among  young 
boys  of  any  sort  than  is  generally  supposed. 


250  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

In  any  event,  Judge  Lindsay  has  more  than 
this  one  opponent.  The  preponderance  of 
opinion  by  judges  and  social  workers  is  con- 
trary to  the  Denver  reformer,  there  being  no 
proof  and  no  general  belief  that  the  cigarette 
is  ever  the  direct  cause  of  crime. 

Thus,  to  quote  but  a  few,  Justice  Franklin 
C.  Hoyt,  one  of  the  Justices  of  the  Court  of 
Special  Sessions  who  preside  over  the  Chil- 
dren's Court  in  New  York,  gives  us  a  rational 
and  temperate  view.  In  a  recent  interview 
he  said :  "While  I  consider  it  wholly  bad  for 
growing  boys  to  smoke  cigarettes,  I  do  not 
think  that  cigarette  smoking  itself  directly 
leads  boys  to  crime.  It  is  an  incident  and 
indication  of  their  evil  environment." 

B.  J.  Fagan,  a  probation  officer  attached  to 
the  Children's  Court,  has  given  this  opinion: 
"Cigarette  smoking  among  young  boys  has 
been  a  contributing  cause  in  truancy,  but  I 
have  never  found  any  case  where  cigarette 
smoking  has  led  directly  to  crime  among 
boys." 

And,  in  an  article  in  the  Indiana  Medical 
^Journal,  Dr.  William  B.  Fletcher  wrote: 

I  have  sometimes  asked  myself  if  we  of  the  medical 
profession  are  not  largely  responsible  for  the  wide- 
;  spread  prejudice  against  the  cigarette.  It  is  so  much 
easier  to  agree  with  the  grief-stricken  mother  in  as- 
signing the  cause  of  the  loved  one's  downfall  to  the 
innocent  habit  of  cigarette  smoking,  than  to  state  to 
her  frankly  the  real  cause  which  examination  has  re- 
vealed, or  which  has  been  imparted  under  the  seal  of 
professional  confidence.* 


*Indiana  Medical  Journal,  Vol.  XXIV. 


THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH  251 

Katherine  B.  Davis,  New  York  Commis- 
sioner of  Correction,  who  has  had  many  years 
of  experience  in  reform  work,  recently  de- 
clared that  "it  is  more  important  that  boys 
should  not  lie  than  that  they  should  not 
smoke." 

Burdette  G.  Lewis,  Deputy  Commissioner 
of  Correction  in  New  York,  has  throughout 
practically  all  of  his  mature  life  been  devot- 
ing his  time  to  the  study  and  relief  of  the 
fallen  and  the  unfortunate  of  various  ages 
and  social  levels ;  yet,  in  an  interview  on  the 
cigarette-smoking  boy,  it  was  Commissioner 
Lewis  who  gave  the  following  extremely  ra- 
tional and  illuminating  estimate  of  this  dis- 
puted phenomenon. 

I  have  not  found  anybody  who  actually  can  show 
that  cigarette  smoking  by  boys  has  led  to  crime,  but 
I  have  been  informed  by  competent  medical  authority 
that  excessive  cigarette  smoking  tends  to  undermine 
the  health  of  growing  boys. 

The  smoking  of  cigarettes  among  boys,  and  the  use 
by  them  of  tobacco  in  general  is  one  of  those  tenden- 
cies which,  taken  together  with  many  other  things, 
leads  to  their  physical  deterioration.  On  the  other 
hand,  I  would  rather  teach  the  boy  not  to  lie  and  steal 
than  to  try  to  induce  him  not  to  smoke  cigarettes,  be- 
cause I  think  the  latter  is  a  minor  evil. 

I  think  that  the  average  boy  in  a  reformatory  might 
be  allowed  to  smoke  for  several  years  without  seri- 
ously interfering  with  more  important  reformatory 
work.  After  our  reformatories  are  put  into  a  position 
to  teach  boys  not  to  lie  and  steal,  and  not  to  defile 
their  own  bodies,  then  is  the  time  to  consider  the  al- 
leged evil  effects  of  cigarette  smoking. 


252  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

This  is  the  view  of  a  man  that  ought  to 
understand  the  subject  in  hand  if  anybody 
can  understand  it,  and  behind  him  he  has  not 
only  the  body  of  authority  to  which  we  have 
already  referred,  but  a  still  more  expert  body 
— our  prison  officials,  the  heads  of  our  ju- 
venile reformatories  and  the  teachers  in  those 
institutions.  Among  them  the  consensus  of 
opinion  is  that  crime  and  incorrigibility  are 
never  traceable  to  the  cigarette,  but  that  the 
seat  of  the  trouble  lies  much  deeper.  The 
smoking  of  cigarettes  is  at  most  only  inci- 
dental. 

To  poverty,  bad  environment,  bodily  abuse, 
lack  of  home  discipline,  malnutrition,  and  a 
legion  of  similar  evils  can  be  definitely  traced, 
as  every  sociologist  knows,  the  stream  of 
crime  that  empties  at  last  into  our  juvenile 
courts. 

I  hope  that  I  have  in  no  wise  conveyed  the 
impression  of  attempting  to  defend  the  smok- 
ing of  cigarettes — or  of  anything  else — by 
youths.  I  do  not.  My  object  here  has  been 
simply  to  offset  the  irrational  and  intemperate 
statements  of  zealots  with  rational  views  of 
persons  qualified  to  speak  with  authority. 

What  those  persons  have  said — and  not 
what  the  zealots  have  tried  to  say — confirms 
me  in  the  opinion  with  the  expression  of 
which  I  began  this  chapter.  I  believe  that  to- 
bacco should  not  be  used  before  maturity  has 
been  attained. 

But  the  best  of  all  arguments  against  the 
smoking  of  cigarettes  by  minors  seems  finally 
to  me  to  be  the  fact  that  such  smoking  is  un- 


THE  CIGARETTE  AND  THE  YOUTH  253 

lawful  in  most  states  in  the  Union.    For  my 
part  I  wish  it  were  unlawful  in  every  state. 

This  legal  side  of  the  question  I  consider  in 
a  later  chapter.  Here  and  now  I  maintain 
that,  in  the  interest  of  good  citizenship,  we 
should  see  to  it  that  the  children  of  our  coun- 
try are  made  to  respect  the  law. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

SMOKING  AND  EFFICIENCY 

Stock  Statements  of  the  Physiologies  Are  Mere  Generalities 
— Noted  Athletes  Cigarette  Smokers — At  Odds  in  Base- 
ball  Circles — More   Smokers  Than   Non-Smokers 
Win  Contests — The  Cigarette  and  Mental 
Efficiency— Men  of  Master  Minds 
Users  of  Tobacco. 

WE  HAVE  now  seen  what  a  help  smok- 
ing, cigarette  or  other,  is  to  the  ordi- 
nary man  seeking  comfort  and  solace  in 
the  regular  affairs  of  his  life.  We  have  seen 
what  a  help  it  is  to  that  man  in  critical 
moments,  and  we  have  seen  how  tobacco  is 
recognized  by  governments  as  soothing  to 
the  fighting  soldier  and  how,  by  restoring 
him  to  a  normal  state,  it  nerves  him  in  the 
hour  of  battle  and  strengthens  him  in  the  face 
of  death. 

It  remains  now  to  show  that  what  smoking 
does  for  the  persons  just  mentioned  it  has 
done  and  is  doing  for  men  of  master  minds  in 
every  department  of  life  and  has  done  and  is 
doing  not  only  for  the  master  minds  which 
must  be  kept  at  the  top  notch  of  efficiency, 
but  also  for  the  men  of  master  body  for  whom 
success  depends  upon  the  steadiness  and 
readiness  of  their  nervous  system,  the  hard- 
ness and  resilience  of  their  muscles  and  the 
perfection  of  their  general  health. 

Than  the  athlete's  there  is  no  line  of  human 
endeavor  which  calls  for  steadier  nerves  and  a 
clearer  brain.  There  is  no  line  of  effort  that 

254 


SMOKING  AND  EFFICIENCY  255 

calls  for  higher  general  efficiency,  that  re- 
quires, in  fact,  more  perfect  operation  of  both 
body  and  mind  than  his.  Hence,  in  athletics, 
smoking,  and  especially  cigarette  smoking — 
for  that  is  the  form  of  tobacco  that  most 
athletes  use — should  receive  its  severest 
ordeal. 

Upon  summarizing  the  information  derived 
from  well-known  athletes  and  from  scientific 
investigators,  there  can  be  made  the  general 
broad  statement  that  for  every  one  declara- 
tion that  smoking  is  bad  for  athletes,  several 
statements  may  be  cited  to  show  that  the  use 
of  cigarettes,  or  tobacco  in  other  forms,  does 
no  harm  whatever. 

This  state  of  affairs  throws  an  illuminating 
glare  on  the  carelessness  of  fact  indulged  in 
by  the  anti-cigarette  crusaders.  Of  all  the 
arguments  brought  forward  by  the  antagon- 
ists of  tobacco,  there  is  none  that  has  become 
such  a  commonplace  as  that  no  athlete  would 
think  of  using  the  weed,  above  all  in  cigarette 
form,  while  in  training  or  at  the  time  of  con- 
tests. Every  schoolboy  has  heard  the 
argument  a  hundred  times. 

As  I  have  brought  out  in  another  chapter, 
it  is  certainly  wisest  that  children  of  growing 
years  should  not  smoke  cigarettes  or  anything 
else,  and  to  prevent  their  doing  so  any  fair 
argument  should  be  put  up  to  them.  But  the 
argument  should  not  be  of  a  sort  that  a  boy 
with  his  own  eyes  sees  defeated,  as  he  often 
does,  in  the  case  of  the  athlete  and  the  ciga- 
rette, when  he  admiringly  watches  trained 
athletes  at  their  work. 


256  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE     -V 

In  the  search  for  authentic  data  on  this 

phase  of  the   subject  of  cigarettes,   it  was 

natural  first  to  consult  the  works 

Stock  Q£  physiologists.  They  disagree. 

Statement         j  shall  quQte  first  from  Dr  w   g 

?f_ ™  ,  .  Hall,  Professor  of  Physiology  in 
Physiologies  the  Medical  School  of  North- 
western University.  Dr.  Hall  is  the  author  of 
a  text-book  on  that  branch  of  science  for 
medical  students  and  physicians.  I  select  the 
following  passage  because  it  bears  on  what 
I  have  just  been  writing,  and  is  typical  of  most 
such  text-book  statements,  which  are  often 
mere  generalities.  In  a  pamphlet  on  medical 
views  on  the  subject  of  tobacco,  Dr.  Hall  says: 

"Every  schoolboy  knows  that  when  athletes 
are  training  for  a  contest  they  are  obliged  to 
abstain  absolutely  from  all  forms  of  tobacco. 
Is  this  done  on  theoretical  or  moral  grounds? 
Not  at  all.  It  is  done  because  experience  of 
many  decades  demonstrates  that  when  men 
use  tobacco  they  cannot  do  as  well  as  they  can 
when  free  from  its  effects.  Under  the  influ- 
ence of  tobacco  the  young  man  is  less  alert, 
less  steady,  and  has  less  endurance." 

This  sounds  sweeping;  but  when  we  come 
to  analyze  what  Dr.  Hall  has  said,  we  find  that 
it  is  only  another  general  statement  of  the 
sort  that  has  been  in  text-books  for  genera- 
tions— that  it  is  without  any  proof,  that  it 
offers  no  evidence  of  investigation. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  seeking  data  first- 
hand from  noted  athletes,  the  investigations 
for  the  purposes  of  this  book  brought  forth 
abundant  contradictions  to  such  general 


SMOKING  AND  EFFICIENCY  257 

statements.  Ray  Ewry,  one  of  America's 
famous  athletes,  who  for  years  has  held  vari- 
ous jumping  championships,  was  among 
those  interviewed.  In  substance  he  said: 

"I  have  been  smoking  cigarettes  for  twenty 
years  and  have  always  smoked  while  in  train- 
ing.   The  habit  has  never  grown 
on  me,  and  my  average  is  from  Noted 

twelve  to  fifteen  cigarettes  a  Athletes 
day.  There  is  no  form  of  athletic  Cigarette 
contest  that  demands  more  per-  Smokers 
feet  condition,  especially  peace  of  mind,  con- 
fidence and  forgetfulness  of  all  physical  lim- 
itations than  does  the  standing  jump.  This  is 
readily  understood  when  it  is  considered  that 
it  is  the  only  athletic  contest  which  depends 
entirely  on  the  initial  effort.  There  is  no 
chance  to  recover  any  primary  loss,  for  there 
is  no  secondary  effort  of  opportunity  to  make  \ 
up  through  extra  exertion  as  is  the  case  in 
more  prolonged  contests. 

"When  in  a  contest  I  must  feel  so  perfectly    / 
well  that  I  am  conscious  of  no  disturbing  ele- 
ment.   The  tiniest  pebble  in  my  shoe,  a  bad 
taste  in  my  mouth,  anything  that  in  any  way 
takes  my  attention  works  against  success." 

There  is  no  theorizing  about  that.  It  comes 
from  a  man  who  has  proved  what  he  says  by 
the  most  practical  of  tests,  ^nd  it  is  a  direct 
and  wholly  convincing  answer  to  Dr.  Hall's 
assertion  that  "when  athletes  are  in  training 
for  a  contest  they  are  obliged  to  abstain  abso- 
lutely from  all  forms  of  tobacco." 

And  this  jumping  champion  is  a  man  who, 
in  his  successful  business  life,  requires  the 


25S  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

steadiest  of  nerves  in  his  day's  work.  He  is  a 
mechanical  engineer  in  the  Engineering  De- 
partment of  the  Board  of  Water  Supply  of  the 
City  of  New  York.  Yet  neither  in  his  training 
for  contests  nor  in  his  work  does  he  feel  called 
upon  to  forego  his  consistent  enjoyment  of 
cigarettes.  You  may  say  that  this  is  a  rare, 
isolated  case ;  but  it  is  not.  I  have  similar  in- 
formation concerning  a  large  number  of  the 
most  noted  athletes  in  America. 

Against  such  testimony,  now  that  we  are 
upon  this  phase  of  the  matter,  it  is  possible 

A  HfifJ  *°  (lu°te — an<^  ^  want  to  be  frank 

and  do  so  —  a  statement  by 
jj  JL  ;i  Connie  Mack,  leader  of  that 
Baseball  famous  baseball  team,  the  Phila- 
delphia Athletics.  Some  time 
since,  in  writing  for  the  Scientific  Temperance 
Journal,  he  said,  among  other  things:  "No 
boy  or  man  can  expect  to  succeed  in  this  world 
to  a  high  position  and  continue  the  use  of 
cigarettes." 

Yet  here  again  all  that  we  have  is  the 
sweeping  statement  with  no  proof  to  back  it. 
Indeed,  Mr.  Mack's  position  is  peculiarly  un- 
fortunate, since  at  least  eight  of  the  players 
whom  he  chose  and  upon  whom  he  depended 
for  the  wonderful  success  of  his  team  in  1914 
did  what  many  other  celebrated  ballplayers 
have  done— they  publicly  indorsed  a  popular 
brand  of  cigarettes. 

Fortunately  for  our  present  purposes,  there 
has  been  a  tendency  in  recent  years  for 
scientists — stimulated,  perhaps,  by  the  re- 
markable growth  of  cigarette  smoking  with 


SMOKING  AND  EFFICIENCY  259 

certainly  no  falling  off  in  the  general  effi- 
ciency of  the  nation— to  investigate  this  sub- 
ject from  a  practical  standpoint.  Let  us 
glance  at  the  results  of  their  investigations. 
Among  the  most  significant  studies  is  that 
by  E.  L.  Clarke,  published  in  the  Clark  Col- 
lege Record  for  July,  1909.  Mr. 
Clarke  made  a  painstaking Mor^  Smokers 
record  of  201  students  and  found  ...  ™an 

that  46.3  per  cent,  of  them  ^>n-5mo£ers 
smoked.  He  records  that  the  Win  Contest* 
smokers  exceeded  the  non-smokers  a  little 
in  strength  and  in  lung-capacity,  and  that  26 
per  cent,  of  the  smokers  won  athletic  con- 
tests against  16  per  cent,  of  the  non-smokers. 
Professor  Clarke  thus  sums  up  the  results  of 
his  inquiry: 

1.  As  a  rule  the  non-smoker  is*  mentally  superior 
to  both  the  occasional  and  the  habitual  smoker. 

2.  As  a  rule  the  non-smoker  is  equal,  and  probably 
slightly  superior,  physically,  to  all  members  of  the 
smoking  classes  except  the  athletes.    It  may  well  be 
queried  as  to  whether  the  smoking  athlete  does  not 
make  his  gain  at  too  high  a  mental  cost  to  make  it 
pay.  No  one  would  contend  for  a  moment  that  smok- 
ing is  the  sole  cause  of  these  differences.    There  are 
numerous  other  factors  that  are  inseparably  linked 
with  it. 

What  is  true  of  American  athletes  appears, 
as  one  would  of  course  expect,  to  be  true  of 
athletes  the  world  over.  For  instance,  let  us 
consider  England.  In  an  article  on  "Tobacco 
Smoking"  published  in  the  St.  Bartholomew 
Hospital  Journal  an  associate  of  Sir  Lauder 


260  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

Brunton  says,  as  to  the  effect  of  tobacco  smok- 
ing on  students: 

I  must  admit  that  I  began  to  feel  some  doubt  about 
the  baneful  action  of  tobacco  when  I  met  a  few  run- 
,  ners,  undeniably  in  the  first  flight,  who  continued 
smoking  right  up  to  the  very  hour  of  their 
contest.  This  doubt  has  been  strengthened  by  a 
contemplation  of  the  comparative  laxness  outside 
university  circles,  where  one  may  see  athletes,  whose 
excellence  is  unquestionable,  regular  smokers,  and, 
in  some  cases,  really  big  smokers  ...  I  can- 
not trace  the  slightest  influence  of  tobacco  on  phy- 
sical efficiency. 

Smoking  is  notoriously  common  among 
golfers.  I  know  many  and  among  them  the 
most  expert  smoke  cigarettes.  Harold 
Hilton,  English  Amateur  Champion,  is  a 
devotee  of  the  cigarette.  I  could  mention 
scores  of  others.  In  discussing  this  subject 
of  athletics  and  smoking,  one  of  the  most 
noted  all-round  athletes  in  the  world,  a  man 
who  has  made  world  records  in  broad  and  high 
jumps  and  in  running  races  for  various  dis- 
tances, said  that,  although  he  had  smoked 
cigarettes  from  boyhood,  he  eliminated  them 
from  his  diet  while  in  active  training.  That 
is  a  rule  of  a  majority  of  cigarette-smoking 
athletes;  but  they  also,  while  in  training  for 
contests,  eliminate  from  their  diet  many  kinds 
of  wholesome  food,  as  well. 

Why  is  this  done?  The  answer  is  simple 
and  in  no  wise  militates  against  the  cigarette. 
The  rigorous  discipline  that  men  are  sub- 
jected to  by  trainers  makes  for  an  abnormal 
mode  of  living  calling  for  abstinence  from 


SMOKING  AND  EFFICIENCY  261 

many  foods  and  also  from  practices  that  are 
considered  perfectly  healthful  for  people  en- 
gaged in  normal  occupations,  and  for  the 
athletes  themselves  when  they  are  not  in 
training. 

Tea  and  coffee  usually  are  forbidden,  but 
that  does  not  make  them  generally  con- 
demned. Very  often  milk  is  forbidden,  yet  no 
one  would  say  therefore  that  milk  is  bad  for 
all  men  at  all  times. 

Usually  meats  of  all  kinds  are  put  under  the 
trainer's  ban,  yet  even  the  most  radical  vege- 
tarians have  not  seized  upon  this  as  a  clinch- 
ing argument  for  general  condemnation  of 
flesh  as  a  diet. 

No  more  does  this  forced  abstinence  from 
cigarettes  prove  that  they  are  detrimental  to 
the  athletes,  or  to  anyone  else,  under  the  con- 
ditions of  normal  life. 

The  list  of  noted  athletes  who  smoke  ciga- 
rettes, and  who  did  smoke  them  while  they 
kept  on  winning  hard-fought  contests,  might 
be  made  a  long  one.  It  would  seem  that  con- 
demnation of  the  cigarette  because  it  fre- 
quently is  barred  in  training  quarters  is,  to 
say  the  least,  not  well  founded. 

Again  and  again  we  hear  the  statement  that 
smoking  decreases  mental  efficiency.  Does 
it?  There  is  abundant  evidence  The 

that  it  does  not.  The  evidence  cigarette 
of  eminent  medical  authorities  and  Mental 
and  the  evidence  of  an  impos-  Efficiency 
ing  array  of  geniuses  in  almost 
every  profession  and  every  branch  of  high 
arts— men  who  lead  all  others  in  the  bril- 


262  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

liance  of  their  minds  and  in  the  things  they 
have  done  and  are  doing  for  the  advancement 
of  the  knowledge  and  the  general  welfare  of 
mankind.  On  this  point,  in  an  article  in  the 
Technical  World  Magazine  on  "The  Truth 
About  Tobacco,"  F.  C.  Walsh,  M.  D.,  writes: 

There  is  a  psychological  basis  in  stating  that  any- 
thing pleasurable  stimulates  the  imagination  arid  is 
conducive  to  reverie.  Now,  much  of  original  scien- 
tific research,  and  nearly  all  inventions,  are  based 
upon  scientific  use  of  the  imagination.  Much  of  the 
work  of  the  poets  and  novelists  is  likewise  due  to 
reverie.  A  great  financier  or  railway  president  may 
also  plan  a  coup  while  physically  related  but  men- 
tally stimulated  in  a  pleasurable  way  by  the  taste  or 
odor  of  a  good  cigar. 

All  creative  work  of  a  purely  mental  nature,  which 
is  at  the  same  time  largely  dependent  on  a  quick  and 
lively  imagination,  may  be  said  to  be  assisted  by  to- 
bacco, but  for  brief  periods  only.  To  those,  then, 
who  live  or  take  their  recreation  through  the  imagin- 
ation, tobacco  is  both  a  pleasure  and  a  spur  to 
«  efficiency. 

Plenty  of  other  expert  opinions  could  be 
produced  to  this  effect.  Among  them  is  that 
of  no  less  a  savant  than  Dr.  Norman  Kerr,  F. 
L.  S.,  of  London,  whose  works  place  him  at 
the  head  of  authorities  among  English-speak- 
ing people  in  matters  concerning  the  effects 
of  stimulants  and  narcotics  upon  the  human 
system.  Says  Dr.  Kerr: 

With  persons  of  a  certain  temperament  the  use  of 
tobacco  produces  concentration  of  thought,  mental 
satisfaction,  protection  against  infection,  and  domes- 
tic happiness.  There  are  persons  so  constituted  that 
the  intellectual  powers  require  to  be  aroused  and 


SMOKING  AND  EFFICIENCY  263 

concentrated  before  any  definite  intellectual  effort 
can  be  even  entered  upon.  To  such  persons  tobacco 
smoking  has  proved  invaluable,  the  advantages  far 
out- weighing  the  disadvantages.  No  other  substance, 
narcotic  and  anaesthetic,  is  yet  known  which  would 
serve  this  purpose  and  do  so  little  damage. 

Were  tobacco  not  known,  the  idiosyncrasies  of  such 
individuals  would  interfere  with  the  achievement  and 
excellence  of  their  work. 

For  just  one  moment  consider  the  matter  not 
solely  in  the  light  of  ordinary  common  sense. 
It  stands  to  reason  that  a  plant  which  could 
fasten  upon  mankind  throughout  the  civilized1 
world,  in  the  short  space  of  four  centuries, 
a  habit  which  during  all  that  time  has  grown 
and  is  growing  faster  than  the  increase  of 
population — a  plant  that  has  become  known 
and  has  been  cultivated  in  every  portion  of  the 
planet — must  meet  an  essential  want  of  the 
human  body  and  mind.  Such  is  tobacco,  and 
its  use  —  even  its  efficacy,  we  believe  —  has 
grown  enormously  since  the  introduction  of 
the  cigarette,  the  mildest  form  in  which  it  can 
be  employed. 

Of  all  the  commodities  on  earth,  tobacco  is 
the  only  one  common  to  the  consumption  of 
every  race  and  every  social  condition.  As  a 
comfort  to  the  lowly  and  as  a  luxury  to  the 
rich,  it  unites  all  men  in  a  common  pleasure. 
And  more  and  more  as  the  years  roll  on  men 
are  turning  from  the  pipe  and  cigar  to  the 
milder  cigarette. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  now  the  cigarette 
is  the  favorite  form  of  smoking  by  physicians 
themselves  throughout  the  United  States,  as 


264  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

it  long  has  been  among  all  the  professional 
men  of  Europe.  Among  its  devotees  here  and 
abroad  are  a  great  many  clergymen  and  thou- 
sands of  lawyers,  bankers,  statesmen,  writers 
and  college  professors. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  still  frequently 
advanced  "argument"  that  men  of  master 
minds  are  not  addicted  to  the 
Men  of  uge  Q£  tobacco  is  an  argu- 

Master  Mind*  meni  merely  of  meaningless 
Users  of  words,  for  to  record  the 
names  of  famous  men  in  the 
ranks  of  smokers  would  be  like  pub- 
lishing a  "Who's  Who"  of  the  world's 
greatest  intellects.  Of  course  it  might  be  said 
that  these  men  ate  and  drank  in  common  a 
good  many  things  that  may  or  may  not  have 
benefited  them,  and  there  would  be  no  point 
in  developing  this  theme  if  it  were  not  for  the 
fact  that  there  is  abundant  evidence  that 
smoking  never  did  them  any  harm.  Such 
evidence  there  is,  however,  in  plenty. 

We  have  it  from  their  physicians  and  also 
from  these  famous  personages  themselves, 
that  they  have  found  in  tobacco,  in  common 
with  the  mass  of  mankind,  not  alone  the  one 
negative  virtue  of  no  ill-effects,  but  the  three 
positive  virtues  of  comfort,  solace  and  inspira- 
tion. 

Charles  Lamb,  the  "gentle  Elia,"  was  an  im- 
moderate smoker  and  wrote:  "For  thy  sake, 
Tobacco,  I  would  do  anything  but  die." 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson  alternated  between 
cigarettes  and  cigars,  sometimes  smoking  as 
many  as  twenty  of  the  latter  in  one  day  and 


SMOKING  AND  EFFICIENCY  265 

at  other  times  as  many  as  eighty  of  the  former. 

Nearly  all  Continental  authors,  including 
George  Sand  (Madame  Dudevant)  have  al- 
ways been  excessive  smokers,  and  the  list 
of  famous  writers  in  our  own  language  who 
were  smokers,  or  of  our  living  writers  who 
are  smokers,  would,  indeed,  practically  ex- 
haust a  history  of  our  literature.  To  men- 
tion but  a  few  names  at  random,  there  are 
Milton,  Gibbon,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Carlyie, 
Tennyson,  Mark  Twain,  Byron,  Addison, 
Scott,  Emerson,  Izaak  Walton,  Thomas 
Moore,  Bulwer-Lytton,  Thomas  Bailey  Al- 
drich,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  H.  G.  Wells, 
John  Galsworthy,  Stephen  Crane  and  Rud- 
yard  Kipling.  There  are  scarcely  any  living 
writers  of  note  in  America  who  do  not  smoke. 
I  know  personally  a  large  number,  and  a  great 
majority  of  them  smoke  cigarettes  and  prefer 
this  form  of  smoking. 

A  list  almost  as  imposing  could  be  made  of 
ecclesiastics  and  clergymen  who  have  been 
regular  smokers,  but  a  truly  militant  example 
will  be  found  in  the  case  of  Rev.  Charles 
Spurgeon,  the  great  evangelist.  He  was  a 
smoker,  and  so  was  that  other  noted  evan- 
gelist felicitously  named  Pentecost.  The 
latter,  at  a  service  at  which  the  former  was 
present,  said  that,  as  a  matter  of  self-denial, 
he  was  giving  up  tobacco.  Mr.  Spurgeon 
arose  and  remarked : 

"Notwithstanding  what  Brother  Pentecost 
has  said,  I  intend  to  smoke  a  good  cigar  to 
the  glory  of  God  before  I  go  to  bed  tonight. 
If  anybody  can  show  me  in  the  Bible  the  com- 


266  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

mand  'Thou  shalt  not  smoke'  I  am  ready  to 
keep  it — but  I  have  not  found  it  yet." 

Long  and  brilliant,  likewise,  is  the  list  of 
eminent  scientists  that  were  in  their  day,  or 
are  now,  smokers.  The  great  Huxley,who  re- 
gretted that  he  did  not  learn  of  the  solace  of 
tobacco  until  some  years  after  reaching  man- 
hood, said  in  his  later  years:  "For  my  own 
part,  I  consider  that  tobacco,  in  moderation, 
is  a  sweetener  and  equalizer  of  the  temper." 

Sir  Isaac  Newton  was  an  inveterate  smoker, 
and,  says  F.  W.  Fairholt:  "As  if  to  show  the 
fallacy  of  many  objections  to  tobacco,  one 
being  that  it  injures  the  teeth,  though  he  lived 
to  a  good  old  age  he  lost  but  one  tooth." 

Among  inventive  geniuses  there  is  scarcely 
an  exception.  Dr.  Charles  P.  Steinmetz,  the 
wizard  of  the  General  Electric  Company,  is  an 
almost  constant  smoker.  Thomas  A.  Edison, 
opposed  to  cigarettes,  prefers  to  find  his  so- 
lace in  chewing  tobacco ;  but  Guglielmo  Mar- 
coni, inventor  of  the  wireless  telegraph,  which 
well  ranks  as  a  modern  world-wonder,  is  a 
devotee  of  the  cigarette. 

Many  noted  jurists  whom  I  have  met  are 
cigarette  smokers.  One  whom  I  have  in  mind 
is  Justice  Bartow  S.  Weeks,  of  the  New  York 
Supreme  Court,  whom  I  was  tempted  to  men- 
tion earlier  in  this  chapter  when  writing  about 
athletes  who  smoke  cigarettes.  Justice 
Weeks  is  almost  as  well  known  for  his  interest 
in  athletics  as  he  is  for  his  legal  wisdom.  He 
was  an  athlete  of  great  ability  in  his  younger 
days,  has  been  President  of  the  famous  New 
York  Athletic  Club  and  of  the  Amateur 


Photo,   from  Brown   Bros.,   N.    Y.  Photo,    from    Paul    Thompson,    N. 


Copyright    Internationa!    Film    Service      Photo,    from   Paul   Thompson.   N. 

RULERS  WHO  ENJOY  THEIR  CIGARETTES 

At  the  top  are  shown  the  Czar  of  Russia  and  the  German  Kaiser 
before  they  went  to  war,  mutually  enjoying  cigarettes  when  , ^mR  on  « 
hunting  expedition,  and  the  Kaiser  on  horseback  in  war  . rega l»a  wrth  h  s 
inevitable  cigarette.  At  the  bottom,  left,  the  King  of .  Spam  is  Anting  ms 
cigarette  while  Spanish  peasants  endeavor  to  start  his  stalled  autor 
At  the  right  is  King  Albert  of  Belgium. 


SMOKING  AND  EFFICIENCY  267 

Athletic  Union,  and  is  at  present  the  Chair- 
man of  its  Legal  Committee  as  well  as  Sec- 
retary of  the  American  Olympic  Committee, 
and  yet  he  is  a  cigarette  smoker. 

We  have  already  seen  how  Major  Gen- 
eral George  W.  Goethals,  to  whom  the  nation 
is  largely  indebted  for  the  Pan- 
ama  Canal,  saw  to  it  that  ciga-  ~en' Goethais 
rettes  were  supplied  to  the  men An  Inveterate 
under  him  in  that  work,  because  Smoker  of 
he  considered  them  essential  to  £***•«* 
their  comfort  and  best  working  ability.  Gen- 
eral Goethals  is  himself  an  inveterate  smoker 
of  cigarettes  and  has  been  for  years,  but  he 
is  also  one  of  the  world's  greatest  engineers 
and  a  powerful  executive.  There  is  certainly 
no  better  answer  than  this  to  the  question  of 
the  relation  of  cigarettes  to  efficiency,  both 
physical  and  mental. 

Nearly  all  of  our  Presidents,  from  Washing- 
ton, who  was  one  of  the  leading  tobacco 
planters  and  exporters  of  his  time,  down  to 
the  present,  have  been  users  of  tobacco 
in  one  form  or  another;  and  practically  all 
of  the  rulers  of  other  countries  for  the  past 
two  centuries  were,  or  are,  smokers.  That 
is  a  general  statement  of  the  kind  which 
I  have  purposely  avoided  in  this  book,  because 
general  statements  prove  nothing;  but  in  this 
case  it  is  used  because  it  would  be  tiring  to 
the  reader  if  I  were  to  be  specific  and  attempt 
a  catalogue  of  names. 

In  the  same  vein  I  may  safely  say  that  most 
of  the  world's  great  generals  and  military 
geniuses  from  Oliver  Cromwell's  time  have 


268  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

been  smokers.  No  reader  of  the  chapter  on 
"The  Cigarette  in  War"  will  be  surprised  at 
the  above  statement,  nor  wonder  at  the  fact 
that  the  leaders  of  the  armies  of  all  of  the 
nations  now  at  war  in  Europe  are  smokers  of 
cigarettes — Kaiser  Wilhelm  and  the  Crown 
Prince  of  Germany,  and  the  Kaiser's  staff 
almost  to  a  man;  King  Albert  of  Belgium  and 
his  staff;  Czar  Nicholas  of  Russia  and  his 
staff;  King  George  of  England  and  Sir  John 
French,  the  British  Commander-in-Chief,  and 
General  Joffre,  of  the  French  army. 

It  is  well,  however,  to  return  to  science 
by  way  of  concluding  this  chapter.  On  this 
subject  of  smoking  and  efficiency  the  New 
York  Medical  Journal  recently  published  an 
editorial  that  said: 

Smokers  of  pipes  and  cigars,  to  say  nothing  of 
chewers,  are  unable  to  appreciate  the  delicacy  and 
fine  flavor  of  a  cigarette  for  the  same  reason  that 
a  man  who  dines  habitually  on  steak  drowned  in 
Worcestershire  sauce,  is  unable  to  savor  the  tri- 
umphs of  the  French  chef  with  his  ethereal  and 
artistically  combined  relishes. 

The  cigarette  is  not  for  boys,  but  for  grown  men 
of  good  taste.  It  occupies  with  regard  to  other  forms 
of  tobacco  the  same  relation  that  a  fine  old  claret  or 
burgundy  does  to  the  heavy  and  noxious  product  of 
the  still. 

Prohibitionists  confound  all  the  latter  under  the 
generic  term  of  "rum";  they  are  consistent  when 
compared  with  smokers  of  the  heavy  Havana  to- 
bacco, who  fall  in  with  its  manufacturers  in  attacks 
upon  the  comparatively  light  and  harmless  Turkish 
and  Virginia  products.  Men  are  well  within  their 
rights  in  forbidding  cigarette  smoking  and  other 
pleasures  and  distractions  to  their  employes;  it  is 


SMOKING  AND  EFFICIENCY  269 

another  matter  when  they  seize  upon  a  nation  wide* 
opportunity  to  compound  with  vices  they've  a  mind 
to,  by  damning  one  they're  not  inclined  to,  especially 
when  the  latter  affords  needed  solace  and  recreation 
to  millions  perfectly  capable  of  judging  what  is  and 
what  is  not  good  for  them. 

In  Europe,  where  a  good  deal  of  logical  thinking 
still  prevails,  there  is  probably  not  one  smoker  of 
distinction  in  any  walk  of  life  who  does  not  include 
the  cigarette  in  his  nicotian  armamentarium.* 

With  such  opinions  from  such  sources,  and 
with  such  examples  from  life  to  confute  the 
enemies  of  the  cigarette  it  seems  to  me  that 
their  case  is  badly  shattered. 


*Nevr  York  Medical  Journal.    Issue  of  July  25,  1914. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

CIGARETTE  LEGISLATION 

Opinion  of  a  Cigarette  Manufacturer — Question  of  Age  Limit 

— States  Changing  "Anti"  to  Minor  Laws — The 

Power  of  Popular  Prejudice. 

WE  HAVE  now  seen  the  cigarette  in  all 
the  stages  of  its  development.  We 
have  studied  its  growth  to  popularity 
both  at  home  and  abroad;  we  have  watched 
the  wonderful  increase  of  the  cigarette  in- 
dustry, and  we  have  examined  the  opinions 
for  and  against  its  alleged  defects  and  its 
virtues.  Surely  we  should  at  last  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  face  the  one  remaining  question  that 
the  subject  presents  to  us,  the  question  of 
legislation:  What  is  the  duty  of  the  State  in 
regard  to  the  cigarette? 

Before  consulting  the  statute-books,  the 
legislators  that  make  them,  or  the  judges  that 
enforce  their  provisions,  it  occurred  to  me  to 
secure,  by  way  of  beginning,  a  thoroughly 
prejudiced  view.  I  thought  it  would  be  inter- 
esting to  hear  a  cigarette  manufacturer  in- 
veigh against  any  interference  with  his  bus- 
iness by  the  State.  I  knew  that  I  would  not 
agree  with  him  in  such  an  invective,  but  I 
thought  it  a  good  plan  to  secure  his  thesis 
and  then  gather  material  for  its  refutation. 

Consequently  I  interviewed  one  of  the 
highest  officials  of  what  is  doubtless  the 
largest  single  corporation  manufacturing 
cigarettes  in  the  United  States.  I  bluntly 

270 


CIGARETTE  LEGISLATION  271 

asked  him  to  state  the  attitude  of  his  com- 
pany toward  anti-cigarette  legislation.  Im- 
agine my  surprise  when  he  made  this  answer: 

"No  intelligent  manufacturer  objects  to  the 
enactment  and  enforcement  of  state  laws  pro- 
hibiting the  sale  of  cigarettes  to  minors.  We 
do  not.  In  fact  we  heartily  endorse  and  en- 
courage such  legislation. 

"Naturally  we  object  to  sweeping  prohib- 
itive laws  that  deny  grown  men  the  right  to 
smoke  what  they  please.  Such  laws  never 
are  enforced  and  tend  toward  a  disregard  for 
all  laws.  A  law  passed  without  the  force  of 
general  public  opinion  back  of  it,  one  that 
encroaches  upon  the  thoroughly  American 
principle  of  personal  liberty,  always  is  a  dead 
letter — made  only  to  be  broken,  and  is  there- 
fore a  corrupter  of  public  morals.  A  few 
states  have  been  wise  enough  to  enact  good 
laws  prohibiting  the  sale  of  cigarettes  to 
minors.  They  could  be  and  are  being  en- 
forced." 

For  the  time  I  was  dumfounded.  Here  was 
one  of  the  heads  of  a  vast  cigarette  manu- 
facturing concern  taking  a  sane,  temperate 
and  aloof  view  of  a  question  that  vitally  af- 
fected his  business.  It  was  the  view  at  which 
I,  with  nothing  to  gain  or  lose,  had  long  ago 
privately  arrived;  it  was  the  view  that,  I 
am  convinced,  must  be  held  by  any  individual 
who  is  neither  profiting  by  the  cigarette  in- 
dustry nor  taking  part  in  one  of  the  crusades 
against  it. 


272  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

The  further  I  sought,  however,  the  more  I 
came  to  see  that  cigarette  manufacturers  as  a 
class  agree  with  that  opinion  which  had  at 
first  surprised  me.  Perhaps  this  is  because 
only  men  of  a  broad  mind  can  successfully 
manage  a  great  business. 

I  have  studied  the  statutes  of  many  states, 
dealing  with  cigarettes.  In  all  of  the  laws 
prohibiting  the  sale  of  cigarettes  to  minors  I 
have  found  much  good  and  most  of  them  are 
effective  because  their  provisions  can  be  en- 
forced. In  none  of  the  out  and  out  anti-ciga- 
rette laws  have  I  found  any  good — they  are 
ineffective  because  their  provisions  cannot  be 
enforced.  They  are  farces;  they  are  "dead 
letter"  laws,  and  the  sooner  we  get  over  that 
kind  of  legislation  in  this  country  the  better 
we  will  be. 

Pennsylvania  has  a  drastic  minor  cigarette 
law  which  has  been  in  force  since  May,  1913. 
It  has,  therefore,  had  a  fair  trial.  It  has  pro- 
visions that  can  be  carried  out  and  it  is  being 
enforced. 

In  that  state  few  boys  now  attempt  to  defy 
the  law,  for  they  have  learned,  through  bitter 
experience,  that  punishment  swiftly  follows 
its  violation.  The  result  is  that  the  youth  of 
that  commonwealth  have  a  higher  respect  for 
all  laws  than  they  would  otherwise  have. 
Certainly  they  have  more  respect  for  law  than 
the  youth  of  those  states  having  anti-ciga- 
rette acts,  who  every  day  see  these  laws 
flagrantly  violated. 

Convincing  indeed  is  the  following  letter 


CIGARETTE  LEGISLATION  273 

from  the  Associate  Superintendent  of  the 
Pittsburgh  Public  Schools  written  January  8, 
1915,  to  the  editor  of  one  of  that  city's  lead- 
ing newspapers: 

In  answer  to  your  inquiry  of  recent  date  as  to  my 
opinion  of  the  Pennsylvania  law  in  relation  to  the 
sale  of  cigarettes,  I  have  no  hesitancy  in  stating  that 
I  believe  the  law  is  a  most  excellent  one. 

During  the  fifteen  years  in  which  I  was  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Public  Schools  of  Pittsburgh,  I  be- 
came acquainted  with  the  cigarette  habit  of  school 
boys. 

Since  the  passage  of  the  Pennsylvania  law,  the  im- 
provement has  been  so  marked  that  we  seldom  have 
any  complaint  of  any  kind  any  more. 

You  need  have  no  hesitancy  in  recommending  this 
law  to  any  other  states  or  to  any  people  interested 
in  the  matter  of  cigarette  legislation. 

Yours  very  truly, 

SAMUEL  ANDREWS, 
Associate  Superintendent. 

Here  is  another  letter  of  similar  import.  It 
was  written  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
Public  Education  of  Pittsburgh,  in  January, 
1915: 

In  reply  to  your  inquiry  regarding  my  opinion  as 
to  the  effect  of  the  present  law  controlling  the  sale  of 
cigarettes  in  the  state,  permit  me  to  say,  since  the  law 
now  in  force  prohibiting  the  sale  of  cigarettes  to 
minors  was  passed  we  have  had  less  trouble  with  the 
boys  smoking  cigarettes  than  at  any  other  time  dur- 
ing the  last  twenty  years. 

Very  truly, 
G.  W*  GERWIG,  Secretary. 


274  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

I  have  already  firmly  expressed  my  opinion 

that  it  is  better  that  growing  youths  should 

.  not  use  tobacco,  and  I  am  sure 

Question  that  aR  fair_minded  people  will 

°  agree  with  me  in  this,  just  as 

.  ?e  they  will  agree  that  the  growing 

child  should  abstain  from  other 
things  which  are  harmless,  or  even  beneficial, 
for  the  adult.  The  only  question  about  the 
wording  of  the  so-called  minor  cigarette  laws 
concerns  the  age  limit. 

Many  who  give  close  attention  to  this  sub- 
ject believe  that  the  legislation  would  be  far 
more  effective,  and  its  purposes  more  equi- 
tably carried  out,  if,  instead  of  applying  to  all 
minors,  this  limit  were  reduced  to  an  age 
somewhat  below  twenty-one  years.  Indeed 
the  tendency  now  is  in  favor  of  eighteen  as 
the  proper  period  at  which  to  draw  the  line 
of  limitation. 

Every  state  in  the  country  which  has  not 
got  an  anti-cigarette  law  has  a  minor  law  of 
some  sort.  The  age  limits  range  from  fifteen 
to  twenty-one  years. 

Let  us  now  glance  at  some  of  the  other 
states  in  which  anti-cigarette  legislation  has 
been  attempted.  The  states 
*"te* .  that  have  laws  prohibiting  the 

Changing  sale  of  cjgarettes  to  anyone  are: 
Anfi  to  Arkansas,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Neb- 
Minor  Laws  raska>  North  Dakota  and  Tenn. 

essee.  South  Dakota  had  an  anti-cigarette 
law  that  the  Supreme  Court  declared  uncon- 
stitutional excepting  as  it  applied  to  minors. 
Washington,  Indiana  and  Minnesota  have 


CIGARETTE  LEGISLATION  275 

repealed  absolute  prohibition  laws  and  sub- 
stituted laws  prohibiting  the  sale  of  ciga- 
rettes to  persons  under  age. 

Wisconsin,  after  some  experience  of  an 
habitually  broken  anti-cigarette  statute,  fol- 
lowed suit  in  1915. 

One  of  the  dead-letter  laws  passed  by  the 
first  legislature  of  Oklahoma  after  that  quon- 
dam territory  was  admitted  to  statehood  was 
an  anti-cigarette  act,  which  the  latest  legis- 
lature of  that  state  has  repealed,  substitut- 
ing a  minor  cigarette  law  with  provisions 
that  can  be  enforced.  The  State  Superintend- 
ent of  Education,  Mr.  R.  H.  Wilson,  was  one 
of  the  most  active  champions  of  the  new  act. 

These  facts  show  a  strong  tendency  in  a 
generally  right  direction.  There  never  has 
been  a  time  when  cigarettes  were  not  sold 
freely  and  openly  in  states  that  had,  or  have, 
anti-cigarette  laws. 

Very  rapidly  the  total  prohibition  states 
are  realizing  that  such  statutes  are  bad  public 
policy,  that  there  is  no  necessity  for  legis- 
lation to  "burn  the  house  in  order  to  roast  the 
pig,"  and  that  it  is  better  to  replace  demoral- 
izing laws  with  reasonable  laws  that  can  be 
enforced. 

Thus  there  is  every  evidence  that  anti-ciga- 
rette legislation,  which  a  few  years  ago  was 
rampant  all  over  the  country,  is  rapidly  dying 
out.  The  latest  notable  attempt  to  revive  it 
was  made  in  the  Georgia  legislature,  but  it 
resulted  in  the  killing  of  the  measure  unborn. 
It  was.  this  proposed  measure  which  called 


276  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

forth  caustic  editorial  remarks  from  no  less  an 
authority  than  the  New  York  Medical  Journal, 
which  publication  often  has  expressed  itself 
forcefully  concerning  restrictive  cigarette  leg- 
islation. Commenting  on  the  threatened  ac- 
tion of  the  Georgia  legislature,  it  says: 

It  is  simply  an  unwarranted  infringement  of  per- 
sonal rights  and  a  curtailment  of  the  degree  of  free 
agency  to  which  every  man  is  naturally  entitled.  It 
is  the  sort  of  law  which,  being  essentially  non-en- 
forceable on  the  one  hand  and  on  the  other  creative 
of  anger  and  a  spirit  of  opposition,  brings  all  law  into 
hatred  and  contempt.  It  is,  further,  a  stage  in  the 
progress  of  a  movement  which  causes  grave  misgiv- 
ings and  fears  among  the  judicious. 

The  law  is  unenforceable  under  present  conditions 
because  it  cannot  avail  to  prevent  all  who  care 
enough  from  getting  supplies  of  their  favorite  form  of 
smoke  medium  from  without  the  State.  Even  were 
this  impossible,  a  new  contraband  trade  in  cigarettes 
and  papers  would  immediately  spring  up  at  exorbi- 
tant prices.***  The  case  is  by  no  means  on  all  fours 
with  the  traffic  in  habit-forming  drugs,  now  the  sub- 
ject of  another  somewhat  excessive  "crusade."  The 
difference  is  that  whereas  no  normal  person  is  addict- 
ed to  the  use  of  drugs,  cigarette  smoking  within 
healthy  limits  is  the  harmless  habit  of  millions  of 
people  all  over  the  world,  including  probably  two- 
thirds  of  the  adult  male  population  of  Georgia. 

As  one  prohibition  after  another  is  proposed  with 
more  or  less  excuse  in  theoretic  benefit  to  individuals 
or  the  public,  one  wonders  where  the  craze  is  to  stop. 
There  is  hardly  any  form  of  pleasure  which  has  not 
its  crew  of  rampant  censors  and  comminators — 
motoring,  the  dance,  the  theatre,  flirtation,  drugs,  al- 
cohol, kissing,  eating  meat,  cigarettes,  the  use  of  to- 
bacco in  any  form — all  these  and  perhaps  a  dozen 


CIGARETTE  LEGISLATION  '  277 

others  we  do  not  call  to  mind  are  to-day  the  subject 
of  agitations  calling  for  prohibition  by  law  on  moral 
or  hygienic  grounds  or  both.  Where  is  this  to  end? 
Are  the  people  of  America  to  be  tied  up  presently  in 
a  tangle  of  worse  than  Chinese  paternalism?  Are 
individual  mind  and  will  and  conscience  to  give  way 
altogether  to  a  paternalism,  half  ecclesiastic,  half 
governmental,  all  fussy  and  fatuous  and  regardless 
of  the  plain  lessons  of  experience?  * 

That  expresses  a  radical  opinion,  but  the 
source  of  the  editorial  commands  attention  to 
it.  Let  it  be  understood  that  I  am  not  trying 
to  belittle  restrictive  cigarette  legislation  as 
applied  to  minors,  or  at  least  to  youths  of 
eighteen  or  younger.  Not  at  all. 

For  reasons  that  have  been  stated  elsewhere 
in  this  volume — especially  in  the  chapters  on 
excesses  of  various  kinds  and  on  the  cigarette 
in  relation  to  the  youth — I  believe  that  such 
laws  work  for  the  welfare  of  humanity. 

The  whole  opposition  to  the  cigarette  is 
based  upon  ignorance  of  it.    Ignorance  "gave 
birth  to  superstition,  and  super-       _,    _ 
stition    begat    blind    prejudice.  f 

Before  the  Medico-Legal  Society 
in  New  York,  W.  H.  Garrison 
recently  illustrated  this  by  a  bril- 
liant parallel  drawn  in  the  course  of  a  paper 
that  he  called  "A  Brief  for  the  Cigarette": 

"Picture,  if  you  please,  Congress  solemnly 
listening  to  a  petition  to  place  a  tax  on  toma- 
toes, legislatures  and  cities  prohibiting  their 
sale  within  their  jurisdictions!  The  case  of 

*New  York  Medical  Journal.      Issue  of  July  25,   1914. 


278  THE  aTORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

the  tomato  is  nearly  analagous  to  that  of  the 
cigarette." 

Thus  Mr.  Garrison,  and  he  goes  on  to  tell 
how  the  tomato  was  introduced  into  Europe 
in  the  sixteenth  century  by  Spaniards  from 
South  America,  and  was  known  in  Italy  as 
Porno  dei Mori  (Moors'  Apple).  Similarity  of 
sound  made  it  in  French  Pomme  d'  Amour 
(Love  Apple).  And  what  happened?  That 
name  was  enough  to  start  the  belief  that  there 
was  something  sinisterly  dangerous  about  this 
innocent  vegetable  which  two  hundred  years 
afterward  came  to  be  considered  first  a  deli- 
cacy and  then  a  necessity  of  every  home. 

It  was  not  until  1793  that  the  stigma  fell 
from  the  "Love  Apple,"  and  tomatoes  first 
began  to  be  eaten  in  Paris.  Even  at  the 
present  time  this  vegetable  is  avoided  as 
poisonous  by  the  peasants  of  several  districts 
in  Northern  France. 

In  the  early  days  of  our  own  country  toma- 
toes were  raised  only  as  curiosities  and  were 
known  as  "Love  Apples,"  or  "Wolf  Peaches." 
I  remember  that,  in  my  childhood  in  Illinois 
and  Wisconsin  there  were  many  old  people 
who  would  not  touch  tomatoes,  or  "Love 
Apples"  as  they  called  them,  and  that  the  con- 
viction that  they  were  dangerous  became  very 
firmly  impressed  upon  my  mind.  In  fact,  it 
took  years,  after  the  prejudice  was  overcome 
in  Paris,  for  the  people  of  the  United  States 
to  begin  the  use  of  the  tomato  as  an  article 
of  diet,  and  it  has  been  only  within  the  mem- 
ory of  people  now  living  that  the  Pomme 
d' Amour  became  generally  accepted  as  staple. 


CIGARETTE  LEGISLATION  279 

The  cigarette  has  not  had  so  long  an  ordeal 
as  that  suffered  by  the  tomato  on  account  of 
the  similarity  in  sound  between  the  words 
"Moor*'  and  "Amour"  and  as  Mr.  Garrison 
observes,  the  cigarette,  at  any  rate,  "has  no 
phonetic  enemy  to  contend  against."  Yet, 
in  their  essence,  the  histories  of  the  tomato 
and  the  cigarette  are  much  the  same. 

Already,  however,  the  ignorant  fight 
against  the  cigarette  and  the  haphazard  legis- 
lation regarding  it  are  dying  away.  Week  by 
week  the  prejudice  is  disappearing.  Whoso 
has  persevered  to  the  end  of  this  book  will 
know  why  this  is  so  and  will,  I  believe,  ap- 
prove the  new  situation.  For  we  have  seen 
that  the  tobacco  that  goes  into  the  making  of 
the  cigarette  is  the  best  and  purest  obacco  in 
the  world,  planted  in  the  best  soil,  grown  in  the 
most  healthful  climates,  cultivated  with  the 
tenderest  attention.  We  have  seen  that  it  is 
harvested,  cured,  stemmed  and  sorted  with 
almost  incredible  care.  We  have  seen  how, 
in  the  course  of  from  three  to  five  or  six  years 
of  storage  the  leaves  that  go  into  cigarettes 
— bits  of  the  leaves  of  selected  grades  and  of 
several  crops — are  mellowed  and  sweetened 
by  age.  We  have  seen  the  markets  of  the 
Orient  and  of  our  Southland  watched  for  their 
choicest  products  and  millions  upon  millions 
of  dollars  invested  for  our  tobacco  solace.  We 
have  seen  the  raw  material  become  the  pure, 
clean  and  perfect  finished  product  in  machines 
that  are  miracles  of  ingenuity  and  factories 
that  are  marvels  of  cleanliness.  We  have  seen 
that  course  of  aseptic  care  carried  through  the 


280  THE  STORY  OF  THE  CIGARETTE 

processes  of  inspection  and  boxing  to  the  very 
case  of  the  retailer  whence  the  cigarette  is 
sold,  protected  from  the  beginning  of  its 
manufacture  until  it  reaches  the  consumer's 
lips. 

We  have  seen  this  and  we  have  seen  more. 
We  have  seen  slander  after  slander  and  myth 
after  myth  dissipated  and  dispelled.  We  know 
now  that  there  is  no  drug  of  any  sort  added  to 
the  tobacco  of  the  cigarette,  that  its  nicotine  is 
ineffective,  and  that  there  is  no  truth  in  the 
carbon  monoxide  and  similar  stories.  We 
know  that  the  cigarette  is  used  by  many 
athletes,  by  authors,  clergymen,  lawyers, 
scientists,  engineers  and  physicians;  that 
governments,  wishing  only  for  the  best 
physical  condition  in  their  armies,  supply 
their  soldiers  with  cigarettes. 

I  have  shown,  I  feel  confident,  that  the 
proper  use  of  the  cigarette  by  mature  persons 
is  the  best  form  in  which  tobacco  may  be  used. 

I  hope  I  have  made  clear  my  belief  that  it  is 
for  the  welfare  of  humanity  that  we  should 
have  state  laws  prohibiting  the  use  of  ciga- 
rettes by  minors  under  eighteen.  That  is  not 
because  there  is  anything  bad  about  tobacco  or 
anything  wrong  about  smoking.  I  should  just 
as  enthusiastically  advocate  legislation  pro- 
hibiting children,  during  their  years  of  bodily 
and  mental  development,  from  using  a  good 
many  foods  and  beverages  that  parents  un- 
thinkingly permit  them  to  eat  and  drink.  I 
have  stated  this  emphatically  in  my  chapters 
on  youth  and  the  cigarette  and  on  excesses. 

What  I  am  opposed  to  is  the  wholesale  con- 


CIGARETTE  LEGISLATION  ,          281 

demnation  of  the  use  of  the  cigarette  by  nor- 
mal, mature  people,  and  what  I  advocate  is  a 
standardization  of  cigarette  legislation  some- 
what along  the  lines  of  the  statutes  recently 
passed  by  states  that  had  learned  the  futility 
of  making  laws  restricting  the  personal  liberty 
of  grown  men — laws  that  could  not  be  en- 
forced because  they  did  not  have  the  impetus 
of  public  opinion  behind  them. 


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